Irish Schools Showcase 21st Century Learning at International Conference in Brussels

February 2, 2018

Borrisokane Community College is one of three Irish schools which will showcase their learning from their involvement in the ATS2020 (Assessment of Transversal Skills) European research project on Friday 2nd February in Brussels. The ATS2020 project is a three-year project involving teachers and students from ten European countries.

Assessment of Transversal Skills 2020 (ATS2020) is an innovative policy experimentation project co-funded by the European Commission. The project is comprised of 17 partners from 11 EU countries and began in 2015.

ATS2020 provides a comprehensive learning model for the enhancement of student indispensable transversal skills within curricula and offers new approaches and innovative tools to teachers for the development and assessment of these skills.

A cross section of Irish schools have been involved in the EU backed project with teachers working together to embed key skills such as communication, information literacy, collaboration and digital literacy into teaching, assessment and learning.

The findings from the project will be used to inform professional development for teachers moving forwards and the project will also make policy recommendations arising from the qualitative and quantative analysis conducted as part of the project.

The conference in Brussels will share the learning from the pilot implementations in each of the participating countries.   The day will also include presentations from key experts in the field of 21st Century Learning, with a keynote address from Dr Helen Barrett, an international ePortfolio expert from Seattle, USA; and an exploration of what it means to be digital in learning with Professor Deirdre Butler from DCU’s Institute of Education . The conference will include an opportunity to explore digital and key skills with Dr Yves Punie who led the development of the European Commission’s recently published DigiCompEdu Framework which supports teachers in developing digital skills to use in teaching, assessment and learning.

Borrioskane Community College is one of two case study schools in the Irish ATS2020 project and three teachers from the school,.Ms. Suzanne McMahon, Ms Eimear Lyons and Ms. Davina Fogarty, have worked on the project. Ms. McMahon and Ms Lyons will travel to Brussels this week to showcase the learning from the project. The conference will involve 250 educators and policy makers from across Europe and the teachers from Borrisokane Community College will share their learning.

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