| *Photo Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUImages
Educator-Led Competency-Based Education Research and Practice
In a four-part series, Dr. Tommy Wolfe, a high school science teacher at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois and an Adjunct Professor acting as the Competency-Based Lead for DePaul University’s Office of Innovative Professional Learning in Chicago, shares his research on and practice of competency-based education, including how individual teachers and departments can introduce CBE practice even when their school hasn’t transitioned to CBE.
1. Competencies Help Bridge the Gap Between Traditional and Project-Based Learning, the first of two posts based on Wolfe’s dissertation research, describes how teachers using competencies engaged with content in new, thoughtful ways that provided structure for authentic project-based learning.
2. How Competencies Influence Teacher Practice shares findings that using competencies instead of traditional standards helped teachers hone practice, teach skills and enduring ideas in addition to academic knowledge, take a more facilitative approach to teaching, and differentiate learning for students.
3. Scaffolds for Student Agency provides resources from Wolfe’s own adoption of practical scaffolds in the way he uses unit guides, performance task guides, exemplars, and skill cards. Learn how he supports the development of student agency and his own competency-based teaching practices in his high-school science classroom.
4. Teacher Insights on Developing Competency-Based Practices in the Classroom is the last post in the series. Wolfe shares how he has adopted competency-based practices, such as piloting 1-2-3-4 proficiency scales, supporting flexible pacing, and building units around authentic contexts. |
