European Insights into Competency

I stumbled across a very helpful article Competency-based education: learning at a time of change in Proceedings of “European/national initiatives to foster competency-based teaching and learning” European Conference 2014. Although there are issues to be considered in translating our competencies to the European competences, this article summarizes a number of ideas that I think will be helpful. (See International Study in Competency Education: Postcards from Abroad for more background info.)

I’ve plucked a number of the sections below for you to look at:

1. Attributes of competency-based learning (for the learner themselves)
2. Attributes of competency-based teaching
3. Considerations for writing competency-based objectives

Just keep in mind as you read this that the structure has everything linking back to the outcome — and we know that it in fact we need to keep students at the core.

1. What are the key attributes of competency-based learning?

• Understand how one learns best (style)
• Understand exactly what is expected outcome(s) of learning
• Take responsibility for one’s learning
• Motivated to learn – goal oriented
• Ethical person and practitioner
• Critical thinker
• Self-assess learning and performance
• Commitment to ongoing learning

2. What are the attributes of competency-based teaching?

• Understanding how learners learn
• Matching principles of learning and teaching
• Facilitating not controlling learning
• Modeling humility, critical thinking, respect, competency and caring at all times
• Supporting acquisition of knowledge, skills, and professional behaviors in all learning domains (cognitive, psychomotor, affective)
• Promote and expect learner accountability for learning
• Provide timely, specific feedback on learner progress beginning with learner self-assessment
• Individualize learning experiences according to needs
• Expect increasing complexity of performance as the learner progresses throughout the program

3. What should be considered when writing competency-based objectives?

• Objective: Is the objective related to intended outcome(s), rather than the process for achieving the outcome(s)?
• Performance: Is the performance of the learner relevant to the learning outcome?
• Conditions: Are the conditions, the context, of the performance relevant to the learning outcome?
• Criteria: Are the criteria relevant to the learning outcome? Are they tangible? Are they measurable? Are they sufficient?
• Performance: What will learners be able to do?
• Conditions: What are the conditions under which they have to perform?
• Criteria: How will we/they know if they perform successfully?