We warmly invite you to join us for our upcoming BSI symposium, entitled “Assessment for Future Education: Thinking Skills in the Digital Age”.
As digitalization accelerates and AI tools become increasingly integrated into education and the workplace, many assumptions underlying the traditional education system are being re-examined. A core question being widely discussed points to: what should we teach and assess in school today? More specifically, which competences are most essential for preparing future generations to thrive in a rapidly changing world?
In this symposium, local and international experts will explore these questions from the perspectives of creativity, meta-cognition, and computational thinking. Together, these competences can be understood as thinking skills that are increasingly important for helping students navigate a future in which the physical and digital worlds are becoming ever more intertwined. At the same time, they may help students maintain agency, critical judgement, and autonomy in the face of growing automation.
Beyond discussing why these thinking skills matter, the symposium also aims to explore how they can be meaningfully incorporated into educational assessment. By bringing together leading researchers and practitioners, we hope to stimulate both scholarly dialogue and practical ideas for shaping assessment for future education.
Programme Overview
- 9.30 - 9.45 Walk-in
- 9.45 - 10.00 Opening
- 10.00 - 10.45 Invited Talk - Prof. Dr. Baptiste Barbot, Catholic University of Louvain
- 10.45 - 11.00 Break
- 11.00 - 12.00 Pitch & Poster Session
- 12.00 - 13.00 Lunch break (incl. lunch walk)
- 13.00 - 13.45 Invited Talk - Prof. Dr. Engin Bumbacher, University of Teacher Education
- 13.45 - 14.15 Break
- 14.15 - 15.00 Invited Talk – Wouter Jansen, citoLab & NOLAI
- 15.00 - 15.15 Break
- 15.15 - 16.15 Panel discussion
- 16.30 – 18.00 Drinks (@ Cultuur Café)
Coffee, tea, and lunch will be provided.
Invited Speakers
Prof. dr. Baptiste Barbot
Professor of Psychology, UClouvain (Belgium) & Adjunct Assistant Professor at Yale University, Child Study Center.
Expertise
- Member of the OECD Creative Thinking Expert Group since 2017 that steered the development of the PISA 2022 Creative Thinking Assessment.
- Expert in creativity, creative cognition, and educational assessment, with research focusing on cognitive, psychosocial and motivational development from adolescence to emerging adulthood.
- Associate Editor of Creativity Research Journal, and former Associate Editor of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts (APA’s Division 10) and New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development (Wiley).
- Developer of innovative creativity assessments and interventions, including touchscreen-based measures of creative cognition and VR-based programs designed to foster cognitive and psychosocial development in young people (funded by the America Psychological Foundation).
Talk
From Creativity Theory to Large-Scale Assessment
Creativity is increasingly recognized as a key competence for learning and innovation, yet it remains one of the most challenging constructs to assess. In this talk, Prof. Dr. Baptiste Barbot will examine how approaches to creativity assessment have evolved over time, exploring the theoretical foundations that shape how creativity is defined, measured, and interpreted across educational contexts.
Drawing on his experience leading the PISA 2022 Creative Thinking Assessment, he will discuss the opportunities and limitations of current assessment approaches. The talk will also explore emerging developments in the field, including the growing role of AI in creativity assessment, the use of virtual reality in creative tasks, and reflect on future directions for understanding and evaluating creativity in education.
Prof dr. Engin Bumbacher
Professor of Computer Science Education and Educational Technology at the University of Teacher Education (HEP; Switzerland)
Expertise
- Leading an applied research programme focused on designing innovative learning technologies and services that help teachers drive pedagogical innovations and promote engaging, equitable, and competency-based STEM education.
- Serving as an expert group member for the OECD PISA 2025 assessment in innovative domains, creating competency-based tools and methods to teach and assess computational problem solving.
- Advocating for inclusive and authentic STEM education.
- Two-year student collaboration with the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University, exploring fablab-approaches to build teachers’ innovation capacity.
Talk
Beyond Assessment - Designing Learning Activities that Foster Computational Problem-Solving Activities
As digital technologies continue to transform education and society, computational problem solving (ComPS) is increasingly recognized as an essential competency for learners. ComPS refers to the development of algorithmic solutions to problems through iterative reasoning and refinement (OECD, 2025).
In this talk, Prof. Dr. Engin Bumbacher explores a situated-cognitive perspective on ComPS, focusing not on what students produce, but on the learning opportunities provided by the tasks they encounter. Every task creates a decision-making space, shaping how students think, reason, and engage with computational ideas.
Drawing on experiences from research, classroom practice, and large-scale assessment initiatives, the speaker will discuss what makes a ComPS activity "rich" and how even small changes in task design can influence learning outcomes. He will present a generative approach to designing tasks for teaching and assessment and explore how AI can support teachers in creating activities that foster meaningful ComPS.
Wouter Jansen
Researcher at CitoLab (Dutch educational assessment organization) & NOLAI (national AI education lab)| PhD Researcher, Radboud University (The Netherlands)
Expertise
- Involved in the national Dutch Central Examination (DCE) programme, investigating how AI can support the grading of high-stakes examinations.
- Conducting a PhD at Radboud University on teachers’ perspectives on AI-supported grading of open-ended questions in secondary education.
- Former primary school teacher with 11 years of classroom experience, now working as an Research & Development specialist at CitoLab, focusing on how assessment digitalisation, and AI can be leveraged to make education more engaging, efficient, innovative, and effective for both students and teachers.
- Advocates for the responsible implementation of AI in education, balancing technological possibilities with pedagogical and societal considerations.
Talk
The Future of Grading
With the rise of AI, teachers are eagerly looking forward to an AI grading tool that will relieve them of the tedious task of grading. At first glance, grading open-ended student responses with AI may seem straightforward: provide an assessment rubric, upload student answers, and let the AI do the rest. However, this appears to be far from sufficient, and more needs to be taken into consideration.
In this talk, Wouter Jansen will explore what is (currently) technically possible when it comes to grading with AI. He will examine what is permitted, for example, under the AI Act, and discuss the pedagogical, didactic, and subject-specific challenges that exist. And above all, he will ask and address what is desirable from both practical and scientific perspectives. Using a few prototypes, Wouter will offer a glimpse into the future of grading.
Pitch & Poster Session
Future Education
Alongside the symposium, we invite researchers, educators, and students to present their work during our Pitch & Poster Session on Future Education. We welcome contributions on a broad range of topics related to the future of teaching, learning, and assessment, including (but not limited to) self-regulated learning, metacognition in K–12 education, AI in education, computational thinking, creativity, educational assessment, and other innovative approaches to preparing students for the future.
If you are interested in presenting a poster, please let us know via the registration link. For questions, you can contact Margrit van Ginkel (margrit.vanginkel [at] ru.nl).
Discussion
A Flipped Panel on the Future of Assessment
This symposium concludes with an interactive flipped panel discussion, bringing together researchers, assessment specialists, educational professionals, and policy stakeholders. This discussion will be driven by questions submitted by participants.
Panelists
- Bas Hemker: Educational and psychometric researcher at Cito, and member of COTAN (Dutch Committee of Testing) and IOPS (Interuniversity Graduate School of Psychometrics and Sociometrics).
- Jan Willem Helmink: Experienced school leader with a broad perspective on child development, with a particular interest in preparing children for the society of the future and the role of creative and critical thinking in education.
- Karin Pilz: Head of the department NMP at the the Dutch National Board of Examinations and Assessments (CvTE), overseeing national examinations and assessments in primary education, vocational education, and Dutch as a Second Language.
- Margaret Manion: Associate Professor at the Edward de Bono Institute for Creative Thinking and Innovation, University of Malta.
Participants are warmly invited to submit their question via the registration link and help shape the conversation.
