What Is Competency-Based Education?

This webinar was recorded on April 1, 2016.

Competency-based education, an educator-led reform, is taking root in schools and districts across the country. The concept behind competency-based education is simple: learning is best measured by students demonstrating mastery of learning targets, rather than the number of hours spent in a classroom. By redesigning the education system around actual student learning, we will effectively prepare each student for college and a career in an increasingly global and competitive economy.

In this webinar, attendees learned the foundational tenets of competency education, explored school models that meet students where they are and gleaned promising practices from leaders and practitioners pushing the next generation of teaching and learning.

The co-founders of CompetencyWorks, Susan Patrick, iNACOL President and CEO, and Chris Sturgis, MetisNet, shared competency education’s structural elements. To understand how these elements are implemented in districts and schools, this webinar highlighted two different, emerging competency-based models. Dr. Kristen Brittingham, Director of Personalized Learning, introduced the model in development at Charleston County School District, South Carolina. Then we explored the innovative model being designed at Building 21 in Pennsylvania.  Virgel Hammonds then discussed why educators and communities want to convert to a competency-based structure, and he shared his experiences from Lindsay Unified, RSU2 and as Chief Learning Officer at KnowledgeWorks.

Speakers:

• Susan Patrick, President and CEO, iNACOL
• Chris Sturgis, Principal, MetisNet
• Kristen Brittingham, Director of Personalized Learning, Charleston County School District, South Carolina
• Sydney Schaef, Mastery Learning Designer, reDesign
• Virgel Hammonds, Chief Learning Officer, KnowledgeWorks

For more information and related resources, please visit CompetencyWorks