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

Resources to Support Competency-Based Education and Remote Learning

• Deeper Competency-Based Learning: Making Equitable, Student-Centered, Sustainable Shifts – This comprehensive new book from Karin Hess, Rose Colby, and Daniel Joseph guides readers step by step through shifting organizational policies and culture, developing competencies and competency-based assessment, and building personalized instructional strategies.
• Perceptions of Learner Behaviors and Actions During Personalized, Remote Learning – The Learning Accelerator examines how key personalized learning practices were carried out remotely this spring in the Lindsay Unified School District. The report offers a valuable planning resource for the coming school year.
• Instructing & Assessing 21st Century Skills – A seven-part series on research and best practices related to instruction and assessment of 21st Century skills from Carla Evans, Jeri Thompson, and Chris Brandt of the Center for Assessment. The series reviews the literature and provides instruction and assessment recommendations related to critical thinking, collaboration, complex communication, and self-direction.
• Transitioning and Sustaining Competency-Based Education During School Closures – John Clemente, executive director of South Bronx Community Charter High School, discusses the school’s strategies for sustaining personal connections remotely and structuring learning from a distance, as part of a CompetencyWorks blog series about the school.
• Competency-Based District Leaders on Managing Change During the Pandemic – In this Aurora Institute webinar, Patricia Deklotz, superintendent of Kettle Moraine School District, and Tom Rooney, superintendent of Lindsay Unified School District, discuss their districts’ strategies for a successful transition to remote learning during COVID-19 school closures. Webinar highlights are also available in this CompetencyWorks blog post.
• Personal Interest Projects – Providing opportunities for students to do personally meaningful projects helps them build agency during remote learning (and anytime). Skills21 at EdAdvance, a Regional Educational Service Center in Connecticut, is sharing a free online platform to help guide students through their projects, publish them online, facilitate collaboration, and support teachers to assess and provide feedback.

Educational Equity Resources

• A Guide to Equity and Antiracism for Educators – Edutopia provides a wide array of resources for educators to build understanding of educational equity for themselves and their students.
• Learning and Planning for Educational Equity – The Great Schools Partnership is offering a three-day virtual workshop August 4-6 for teams to examine inequities in their school communities, explore resources and tools, and develop promising next steps.
• Promise and Peril: Examining the Role of Ed Tech for Students With Disabilities – The National Center for Learning Disabilities highlights essential questions to ensure inclusive learning for students with disabilities in relation to providing high-quality, accessible educational technology for remote learning and beyond. More new NCLD resources on this topic are available here.

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

Follow @Eliot_Levine