Skill Cards

A tool for planning, teaching, and assessment

Stefano Lotti, Fabio Di Pietro

Product: Teaching tools

ISBN: 9788859043249

Publication date: 01/10/2025

Suitable for: Primary 1st level (ages 6-7), Primary 2nd level (ages 8-10), Lower secondary 1st level (ages 10-11), Lower secondary 2nd level (ages 12-13), Upper secondary 1st level (ages 14-16), Upper secondary 2nd level (ages 17-19)

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A versatile and engaging tool that supports teachers and students in concretely exploring competences through everyday teaching practice, turning each activity into an opportunity for observation, development, and assessment.

The box contains 164 cards, divided as follows:

82 “Competence” cards, grouped into 8 macro-areas (Communicating, Understanding, Collaborating, Evaluating, Being Digital, Learning, Taking Initiative, Self-awareness), each described through a first-person action statement;
82 “Obstacle” cards (AntiMatter), which help identify the associated difficulties.

The cards can be used to design learning pathways, share a common language, highlight already developed competences, or create new activities based on specific learning goals. They also promote transparent, formative, and shared assessment with students, clarifying which competences are being developed and which still need improvement.

Learning objectives:

To understand and communicate competences
To plan teaching actions
To develop and assess competences

• 82 “Competence” cards, divided into 8 macro-areas (Communicating, Understanding, Collaborating, Evaluating, Being Digital, Learning, Taking Initiative, Self-awareness), each described through a first-person action statement
• 82 “Obstacle” (AntiMatter) cards, helping to identify related difficulties
• 1 poster with the Competence Table and Obstacle Table
• 1 assessment sheet with 4 levels (A–D)
• 1 guide with practical and teaching suggestions

Skill cards

A tool for planning, teaching, and assessment

Skill cards is a versatile and engaging tool that supports teachers and students in concretely exploring competences through everyday teaching practice, turning each activity into an opportunity for observation, development, and assessment. The cards can be used to design learning pathways, share a common language, highlight already developed competences, or create new activities based on specific learning goals. They also promote transparent, formative, and shared assessment with students, clarifying which competences are being developed and which still need improvement. Find out more!

The box contents

82 “Competence” cards, grouped into 8 macro-areas (Communicating, Understanding, Collaborating, Evaluating, Being Digital, Learning, Taking Initiative, Self-awareness), each described through a first-person action statement

82 “Obstacle” cards (AntiMatter), which help identify the associated difficulties

The poster with the Competence Table and Obstacle Table

A guide with practical and teaching suggestions

HOW TO USE THE CONTENTS

The cards can be used in teaching planning for various activities:

Reading, understanding and communicating
Designing a civic education activity
Reading the tasks of the first paper of the final state exam
Analysing a short film

The “Obstacle” cards represent recurring issues such as lack of attention, poor time management, disorganisation, difficulties in comprehension or low motivation. Their purpose is not to judge but to raise awareness: they help identify what is hindering the learning process, allowing targeted interventions. The teacher can use them as an observation tool, selecting from time to time the cards that best describe the difficulties that have emerged during a task or workshop; this makes it possible to guide feedback to students and to revise planning by choosing more suitable activities or methodologies. Each obstacle can become a starting point to activate specific competences and to reflect on how to deal with similar situations in the future. In this way, these cards become a tool that supports metacognition, improves communication between teachers and students, and promotes formative assessment focused on processes as well as outcomes.

HOW TO CREATE NEW CARDS

The cards can be a starting point for introducing other skill cards. For example, starting from COMMUNICATING, you can create a Skill card that focuses on managing social media. The customisable cards can be downloaded and printed from the online resources.

Leaf through some selected pages from the instructions book that have been translated into English to facilitate your evaluation:

The Author

Stefano Lotti Fabio Di Pietro

Thematic Areas

Educational and didactics - Methods and theories
Educational and didactics - Methods and theories > Methodologies, tools and applications