CompetencyWorks | May 2022

May 23, 2022

This newsletter shares recent CompetencyWorks blog posts and Aurora Institute resources, providing thought leadership and practical lessons from the field to support transformation toward personalized, competency-based K-12 schools and systems.

Welcoming New CompetencyWorks Program Director

The Aurora Institute is thrilled to welcome Laurie Gagnon to the organization as the new CompetencyWorks Program Director. Laurie comes to Aurora with extensive experience in K-12 competency-based education (CBE) including deep expertise in CBE practice, competency-based assessment, quality performance assessment, state and school/district policies, and system design. As Program Director, Laurie will lead CompetencyWorks—sharing promising practices shaping the future of K-12 personalized, competency-based education.

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Staff from The Center pose for a photo together.

A Roadmap for Personalized, Competency-Based Professional Learning

Knowing that all learners engage deeply when they are curious and passionate, The Center in Iowa works to make professional learning timely and relevant and to ensure that educators have meaningful control over their learning. For school leaders and educators shifting to a competency-based system, Andrea Stewart shares The Center’s strategies and customizable web-based resources for determining real-time professional learning needs and building proficiency over time.

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Designing Data-Driven Personalized Pathways for Professional Learning

Complex change has several key elements: vision, consensus, skills, resources, incentives, and an action plan. When any of these elements is missing, schools encounter predictable problems such as confusion, sabotage, frustration, and anxiety. Continuing her series on The Center’s resources for shifting to competency-based education, Andrea Stewart illustrates what professional learning looks like when it addresses each of these elements and is personalized based on job-embedded learning cycles and shared problems of practice.

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4 teachers gathered around a computer talking

A teacher holds a plant in front of 3 students as they inspect it under a microscope.

Gradual Release to Learner-Centered Design for Adult Learners

Building learner profiles for adults helps them access new learning, engage with new content and ideas, and work with students in new ways. Learner profiles enable customized learning to help educators feel empowered rather than overwhelmed. Wrapping up her series on professional learning for competency-based education, Andrea Stewart illustrates The Center’s process for helping educators build learner profiles that set the stage for iterative, job-embedded learning, doing, and evolving.

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A teacher and a student stand outside, talking, while a student writes in a notebook.

Summing Up the Competency-Based Education Journey

Why should schools transition to competency-based education? How can they make the journey successfully? What competencies do teachers and school leaders need? What are the essential strategies for creating engaging, student-centered learning experiences? How can we rethink the master schedule and communicate student progress to enable these innovations? Sandra Moumoutjis provides a roadmap to the CBE journey and her recent blog posts on these key steps for transforming schools.

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For more news and updates in K-12 competency-based education, sign up for our monthly newsletters and follow the Aurora Institute on Twitter: @aurora_inst.

About CompetencyWorks

CompetencyWorks is an initiative that provides information and knowledge about competency-based education in the K-12 education system. Drawing on lessons learned by innovators and early adopters, CompetencyWorks is an online resource for sharing knowledge, original research and policy advances, and a variety of field perspectives. CompetencyWorks provides an informative blog with practitioner knowledge on key topics and papers on emerging issues, with resources curated from across the field of K-12 competency-based education.

Contact: Eliot Levine
[email protected]

CompetencyWorks | Aurora Institute