School education is reforming and modern pedagogical methods such as computer supported collaborative problem solving (CSCL) and inquiry learning are being adopted in order to promote the “21st Century Life Skills”, i.e. creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving skills. Assessment is vital to the education process. Current assessments focus on “assessment of learning” rather than “assessment for learning”. They ignore individual learner differences as well as the evaluation of whether students demonstrate creative, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving skills - skills that are needed for learners to function successfully as both global citizens and workers in diverse ethnic and organizational cultures. Fortunately, modern assessment approaches and tools that comply with the philosophy of “assessment for learning” have been proposed since many years with great results.

The purpose of this project is to advance the skills and competencies of teachers across Europe and to better equip them with assessment strategies & tools to evaluate a number of key skills and competencies developed in the classroom, when modern pedagogical methods such as computer supported collaborative problem solving and inquiry learning are adopted. More specifically, the project aims at:

1. Preparing teachers to apply modern e-assessment approaches such as e-portfolio, social network analysis, and learning analytics.
2. Advancing teachers’ lifelong learning skills by building a community of teachers for sharing, discussing, debating, and improving assessment approaches.
3. Disseminating the projects’ outcomes giving emphasis on making an impact on the current school practices as well as creating exploitation plans for continuing the project work after the end of the project’s funding period.

Experienced partners will collaborate for the improvement of the teachers' continuing professional development. This project will empower teachers to assess students’ knowledge, higher order cognitive skills and 21st century competencies (communication, creativity, problem solving) in a more accurate way using modern assessment approaches and tools.  The partners believe that if teachers use modern e-assessment approaches that focus on these skills, and offer better guidance and feedback to students about their learning performance, high school graduates will have problem solving & creativity skills. The aim of the project is to help teachers apply modern e-assessment approaches and tools that can help them to assess whether students demonstrate creative, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving skills.

The partners of the project are:

• University of Piraeus Research Center
• CARDET (Center for the Advancement of Research & Development in Educational Technology)
• University of Valladolid
• Politecnico di Milano
• Open Universiteit Nederland
• Cyprus Pedagogical Institute
• Vocational Training Center EUROTRAINING SΑ

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
[Project Number: 526965-LLP-1-2012-1-GR-COMENIUS-CMP]