On the 16th of August the asset members from the 4th group “Learning to leave together” had a scheduled online meeting where they discussed the design and development of new/renewed assessment methodologies and particularly soft skill assessment tools. Amongst the attendants there were Niva Dolev, Kakha Kvashilava, Nino Chikovani, Adaya Meitovich and Anabel ……? The idea of soft skills assessment comes from the experience of the last two decades since the study curricula and the courses are supposed to develop some other abilities, skills and competencies besides the existing ones. Such skills are often referred to as soft skills and cover Emotional intelligence (EI), Social-Emotional Intelligence (SEI), or Social-Emotional Competence (SEC) that are not less important than other skills and competences the students acquire during the studies. This methodology is particularly a revolution since it is not based on achievement score and how to motivate students to make the best use of it is a challenge and a matter of concern for teachers, especially at the higher educational institutions. During the online meeting Ms Niva and Ms Adaya outlined the key features of the soft skills and answered some of the basic questions coming from the other group members followed by the discussion-debate upon the approaches how to fit the methodology into the range of courses and their specifics. Ms Nino Chikovani drew parallels to her subjects at the university, particularly courses in Children’s rights and education, General English, English for specific purposes, etc and mentioned that while using brainstorming, PBL, discussion-debates, case studies, etc, the elements of soft skills are automatically practiced, sometimes on purpose, but sometimes subconsciously. There were further comments and evaluations from the other group members in order to accommodate and find their niche, or a function in the abovementioned workload. Mr Kakha and Ms Adaya promised to provide the group with supplementary material for reflective writing. Consequently the members of the group agreed on the following action plan: Integrating reflective writing in developing the assessment tools, think and work on creating the relevant learning environment and finally selecting one or two soft skills from the list provided by the Israeli partners that each member would work on, make up some tasks on them and later share with the team members to set further action plan for implementation. I am attaching the photos of the online meeting promoting the collaborative team work on the common interests.

Dear Asset members,  First of all thank you for sharing your hard work, I appreciate and find it so helpful. We have had the local skype meeting today evening with the Georgian members of Group 4 (Tina, Kakha and I) to discuss all of the issues and make our work plan and share with you all later.  However, I have a request to you all, since it is too much frustrating to coordinate such a big group in terms of living in different cities, time zones and the poor internet connection that makes the communication even harder, could I coordinate just the Georgian team meetings and then share the outcomes and upload to our website? Organizing our local meetings are not easy as well due to different regions of the country we live in, but in term of at least internet connection it is supposed to be much more efficient.  I found it crucial to write since I treat the issue with a huge responsibility and respect and since I am still a new asset to the team, would prefer to be guided by more experienced group member as a main coordinator so far. Look forward to your kind feedback. With regards and love,  Nino