What’s New in K-12 Competency-Based Education?

Personalized Learning

• In an article published on The 74, Personalized Learning on the Rise, iNACOL President and CEO Susan Patrick shares lessons learned from iNACOL’s national study of personalized learning and teachers and principals rethinking what’s possible in education.

Earning Credit for Anytime, Anywhere Learning

• New Hampshire’s new Learn Everywhere program, recently passed by the state legislature, provides a mechanism for the State Board of Education to credential community educational programs to extend students’ learning for out-of-school activities and enable students to receive credit toward graduation.

Equity and Anti-Racism

• In Why Equity Has Been a Conservative Force in American Education—And How That Could Change, Jal Mehta offers insights about how well-intentioned attempts to increase equity have reduced opportunities for deeper learning for most students and particularly for traditionally underserved students.
• EdWeek interviews Robin DiAngelo about her 2018 book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. She discusses strategies for applying the principles in her book to improve equity in schools.

Learner-Centered Leadership

• Why and How Learner-Centered Leaders Prioritize Learner Voice is the final topic in a series from Education Reimagined on whether, why, and how learner-centered and school-centered leaders lead differently.

Research on Micro-Credentials for Educators

• A new white paper from Digital Promise, Research and Educator Micro-credentials, examines how the organization has used research to anchor the content of competency-based micro-credentials and the process for earning them. Quality research will be an asset to expanding this strategy for strengthening professional learning.

Resources

• Defining and Measuring Student Outcomes, a recent report from Education Evolving, provides a clear overview of the purposes and potential for student-centered, competency-based assessment plus strategies for effective implementation.
• MIT Teaching Systems Lab professor Justin Reich offered a six-week online course entitled Competency-Based Education: The Why, What, and How. The archived course can be viewed at edx.com and covers many aspects of CBE implementation for multiple audiences.

For more news and updates in K-12 competency-based education, sign up for our monthly newsletter on our homepage and follow iNACOL on Twitter: @nacol

Eliot Levine is the Aurora Institute’s Research Director and leads CompetencyWorks.

Follow @eliot_levine