According to recent studies (Digital Education Plan 2021-2027 in EU), the assessment system was the most challenging aspect to revert in a remote teaching and learning situation in the current pandemic crisis. Those assessment methods involving students’ practical skills which require a high level of interaction with others or with a work-based learning context are especially challenging. The current project will seek to develop INNOVATIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN A DIGITAL ERA in the area of Teacher Education, aiming to SUPPORT EDUCATORS AND EDUCATIONAL LEADERS to improve their teaching and learning skills and BRIDGING DIGITAL SKILLS GAPS of both students and academics in Higher Education. The project AIMS to: 1)Develop e-assessment resources able to secure an authentic, sustainable and effective students' assessment of their work-based skills; 2)Build the university teachers capacity to use e-assessment in an effective and coherent way, along with enhancing their digital competences; 3)Equip universities with mechanisms to change the assessment culture for good, organically incorporating digital solution to facilitate students learning. The project is based on five pillars of intervention, creating a holistic and organic process around the following university dimensions: 1)PEOPLE: Students are the central agent in HE so the development of their professional skills represents our main outcome and priority; 2)ORGANISATION: the project will consider the context of intervention as critical as in any change and innovation process; 3)INTERACTION: Aspects such ethics and integrity will be placed in the centre of interaction designed; 4)RESOURCES: The project will contribute to creating valid and adapted resources for teachers and university leaders; 5)DIGITAL GAP: The assessment must be inclusive for all students and our project will design resources and interventions which will contribute to reducing the teachers and students' digital gaps. The project expects to produce FOUR INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS: IO1: D-EVA BANK. Resources for e-assessment of students' professional skills: study cases of real-life situations in educational centres (school placements, internship centres, university subjects as Practicum); e-assessment rubrics with their guidelines for using learning analytics, viva-voce feedback, virtual reality tools and gamification e-assessment. IO2: D-EVA SITE. Open Digital platform with resources developed in IO1, providing open, free and technological solutions for assessing practical skills. The IO2 will provide prototypes of virtual environments to simulate real job situations using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology. IO3: D-EVA TRAINING. A professional development plan for university teachers in teaching digital competence and specifically e-assessment with innovative digital tools. IO3 is to provide: Open Education Resources, guidelines and methodology for implementation, including guidelines for autonomous implementation in Teacher Education schools; online peer-coaching support plan. IO4: D-EVA PLAN. We will put in place a holistic organisational plan targeting the HE organisations and all actors. It will provide Guidelines for teachers and academic leaders to foster e-assessment practices in both f2f and online contexts, including resistances and facilitators to its implementation, examples of good practices and concrete actions for implementation, Codes of ethical criteria for e-assessment implementation and Online plan for wellbeing, cyber-resilience and digital security for teachers. The project involves a METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGY to maximise collaboration and co-design to reduce the transfer gap, such as a system of co-leading and mixed teams (D-Eva groups) which will act as champions in the implementation of e-assessment practices. A human-centred design, design thinking and co-creation processes and the development of the training programmes will effectively employ the Research Learning Network (RLN) and online peer-mentoring approaches will be used. The TARGET GROUPThe direct beneficiaries are teachers and academic leaders in the field of Teacher Education, especially those involved in delivering teaching in work-related subjects such as practical workshops, school placements, internships, seminars. A total of 20 teachers in each will benefit from the project outputs (a total of 180) and more than 5000 students in Teacher education. The project benefits from the expertise in assessment and digital tools of CONSORTIUM OF 4 PARTNERS: 3 universities and one teachers´ training organisation from Spain (UAB), Iceland, (ICI Island) Romania (UVT) and Nederlands (Digital Society School). The project includes a comprehensive dissemination plan by which all these outputs will be open access and available to the general public in the project's website and resources platform.
This project primarily focuses on addressing these challenges, particularly in study programs with a significant practical dimension like Teacher education. It aims to align assessment practices with current and future educational requirements, building on the experiences gained during the lockdown. Consequently, the objectives of this project aim to address these issues and propose solutions for Higher Education Institutions to adapt their assessment practices using digital tools: 1) Develop e-assessment resources (tools and e-assessment options) capable of ensuring an authentic, sustainable, and effective assessment of students' work-based skills. 2) Enhance university teachers' capacity to effectively and coherently employ e-assessment while improving their digital competences. 3) Equip universities to organically transform their assessment culture, incorporating digital solutions to facilitate students' learning effectively.
In October 2017, the European Council had called for training and education systems to be 'fit for the digital age' (EUCO 14/17). This initiated an Action Plan in 2018, which was developed in the following years to enhance the utilization of innovation and digital technologies. Its goal was to support the development of digital competences necessary in a rapidly evolving digital society. Additionally, the Action Plan underscored the challenges faced by education towards the end of the second decade. Educators were considered the linchpin for adequately preparing citizens for a globalized and interconnected world. During the same period, the European Union had introduced DigCompEdu (2017), an international framework that delineated Teachers' Digital Competence across all levels. This framework aimed to bolster the acquisition of digital competence and provide guidance for innovation and the digitalization of education. However, when the lockdown was imposed on university campuses, and the shift from face-to-face assessments to digital became imperative, educators encountered several challenges, necessitating immediate adaptation. While stringent lockdown measures may become a thing of the past once the pandemic crisis subsides, campus-based teaching and learning are likely to face sustained pressure. This will prioritize students' physical access to campuses, particularly for aspects of teaching and assessment that cannot be delivered online, at least for the time being. In light of this uncertain scenario, two options present themselves: either to plan for optimizing remote assessments for potential future setbacks or to permanently alter our pedagogical approach. The latter would entail adopting a more authentic, sustainable, and effective assessment method that ensures the development of students' professional skills through the effective utilization of digital solutions. This situation underscored the urgent need to transition from traditional higher education teaching methods to more flexible and blended models. The pandemic crisis, which affected over 1.5 billion students worldwide (UNESCO, 2020), prompted an Emergency Plan. For decades, educators and assessment experts had advocated for a radical restructuring of higher education assessment, integrating it more comprehensively into the learning process as Assessment for Learning (Sambell et al., 2013). Traditional unseen, time-constrained invigilated onsite exams had long faced criticism for their lack of authenticity, relevance to students' future lives, challenges to inclusivity, and detrimental impact on students' learning approaches (Brown and Knight, 1994; Sambell et al., 1997; Gibbs and Simpson, 2005). The current pandemic context offered educators, academic developers, and assessment scholars a unique opportunity to effect lasting change in higher education assessment. Recent studies (Henning, 2020, in Norway; Brown and Sambell in the UK; Sala, Noguera, and Valdivia, 2020, in Catalonia, among others) revealed that the assessment system posed the greatest challenge in transitioning to remote teaching and learning. Certain assessment formats, particularly those involving students' practical skills and requiring high levels of interaction, were particularly difficult to switch rapidly. Practical activities such as school internships, practical skills, and school placements were deemed the most challenging and seemingly impossible to assess.