Transversal competences

The world has changed. In the future, a narrow skill set will not be enough in the employment market; instead, transversal competences are required. In order to make it, future experts are required the ability to think, cooperate and solve complex problems while taking care of themselves, their community and the environment. It is also necessary to know how to use the required tools, manage with information overload and present yourself in a credible way.

When put like this, teaching transversal competences seems nearly an overwhelming job for the teacher. Is it not enough that the student can read and count like before? Let’s not be too hasty. Transversal competences are like a Swiss clock with a complex system of cogs, springs and pendulums that is intricately built inside the goals and content of the curriculum. If the teacher knows the curriculum and adheres to it, the student’s transversal competences should develop over time.

Study skills assessment

Values and attitudes, working skills and the information content relevant to each subject are an important part of learning. Transversal competences are very closely interlinked with study skills. In order to achieve good results and understand the learning process in a holistic way, study skills should be evaluated separately in each subject. Study skills practised vary greatly in nature per each subject. For example, good set of study skills with languages can be completely different from, for example, physics and chemistry.

Behaviour assessment

Behaviour is not normally directly included in the goals of subjects and does not affect their assessment, but it is nevertheless an important part of the educational task of schools. Good behaviour is supported with the school’s regulations and usually a verbal or numerical grade is given for it.

With Qridi, it is easy to prepare self-assessments related to behaviour. “Did I let others work in peace?” “Did I promote a good atmosphere in class?” If the assessments are performed regularly, the student knows to pay attention to the right things and it is easy to track any changes in their behaviour. Furthermore, Qridi’s assessment questions can be “tagged” to emphasise certain transversal competences or other larger entities, like the IB Learner Profile. When a student answers these questions, Qridi creates a radial diagram of the answers to illustrate how they advance their skills.