This second volume of papers from the ATC21STM project deals
with the development of an assessment and teaching system of 21st
century skills. Readers are guided through a detailed description of the
methods used in this process. The first volume was published by Springer
in 2012 (Griffin, P., McGaw, B. & Care, E., Eds., Assessment and
Teaching of 21st Century Skills, Dordrecht: Springer). The major
elements of this new volume are the identification and description of
two 21st century skills that are amenable to teaching and learning:
collaborative problem solving, and learning in digital networks.
Features of the skills that need to be mirrored in their assessment are
identified so that they can be reflected in assessment tasks. The tasks
are formulated so that reporting of student performance can guide
implementation in the classroom for use in teaching and learning. How
simple tasks can act as platforms for development of 21st century skills
is demonstrated, with the concurrent technical infrastructure required
for its support. How countries with different languages and cultures
participated and contributed to the development process is described.
The psychometric qualities of the online tasks developed are reported,
in the context of the robustness of the automated scoring processes.
Finally, technical and educational issues to be resolved in global
projects of this nature are outlined.