GRASS – Open Badges for Grading Soft Skills This communication reflects the views only of authors, and the commission cannot be held responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein. Funded with support from the European Commission, within project Grading soft skills: GRASS, No LLP-1-RS-KA3-KA3MP Dr Niall Seery Dr Donal Canty

 Grading Soft Skills (GRASS) is a 3-year research project financially supported by EU focusing on representing soft skills of learners of various ages and at different levels of education in a quantitative, measurable way, so that these skills can become the subject of formal validation and recognition.  The project is being developed with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) of the EU, the flagship European funding programme in the field of education and training. EU LLP Project

The overall aim of this project is to create mechanisms that enable to continuously support, monitor, assess, and acknowledge development of learners' soft skills with the help of state-of-the- art ICT tools. Aim

 Novel pedagogical approaches  Incorporate pedagogy in daily practices  Multiple levels of education  Rich, structured set of soft skills metrics  New model and ICT framework  Mechanisms for acknowledging, grading and awarding learners' soft skills  Incentive policies for teachers Objectives

Partners  Serbia: ◦ University of Belgrade (UB) ◦ First Grammar School of Kragujevac (FGSK)  Sweden: ◦ KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) ◦ VäsbyNew Gymnasium (VNG)  Croatia: ◦ University of Zagreb (UniZg) ◦ Landsurveying school (LS)  Ireland: ◦ University of Limerick (UL), Ireland ◦ Coláiste Chiaráin (CC)

Application Cases PartnerACSoft Skill KTHMath Coach Communication, Collaboration, Problem Solving, Self Regulation VNGSociology Communication, Knowledge Construction, Self-Regulation UBComputer Programming Enthusiasm, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Leadership FGSKCivic Education (CE) Teamwork, Collaboration, Communication, Active Listening, Conflict Resolution UNIZGElectrical Engineering Communication, Collaboration, Innovation, Creativity LSEnglish & Geodetic Measurement Communication, Peer Support, Self- Regulation CCJunior Cycle Key Skills Communication, Collaboration, Innovation ULInitial Teacher Education Articulate, Collaboration, Creative, Knowledgeable, Proactive, Responsible

 Badge Currency  Teacher Pedagogy  Capture of Evidence  Assessment validity  Subjectivity of assessment  Discrimination of Quality Challenges

Currency Soft Skill Metric: Category of Soft Skill Soft Skill Importance Statement Pedagogical Approach Task/Content Assessment Metric Learning Outcomes AwardStakeholders

Pedagogy  Intent  If you are measuring Soft Skill – You have to teach them  Context and Situation  Age appropriate development supporting hard skill acquisition  Untangle  Exclusivity of Soft Skill evidence  Assessment  Recognition and identification of Quality

Assessment

Application Case UL Graduate Attributes

 Multi-disciplinary awards initiative open to students in the Technology Teacher Education programmes in the University of Limerick  It is managed by the Technology Education Research Group (TERG) in partnership with the GRASS consortium  Structured around the UL graduate attributes the project focuses on developing pedagogical approaches and ICT tools and services for representing soft skills in a quantitative, measurable way, so that they can become the subject of formal validation and recognition.

ASSIST Award Graduate Attributes Soft Skills

Problem Contribution Solution

Contribution of Resources to Entire Online Community

 Programmes support development of Soft skills  Students target badges  Generate evidence  Submit for assessment  Feedback/Award  Actualise badges for recognition of skills ASSIST Award

 Suitability of traditional grading (A,B,C,D,E, F, NG)  Measure of the efficacy of your actions  Educational transaction  Self  Peer  Objective  Developmental association  Holistic Weighted Judgement Assessment

Validity  Construct  Content  Criteria Threats to Validity  Construct irrelevant variance  Construct under-representation Assessment

Develop badging infrastructure that will incorporate:  Generic Soft Skill Awards  Context Soft Skill Awards  Developmental Recognition Awards Future Work

Thank you Questions Contact details: