What’s New in K-12 Competency Education?

Are you interested in understanding the competency-based models in higher education? Chris Sturgis shares her insights into the questions you need to ask about these competency-based programs.

Grant Opportunity

The Center for Innovation in Education and NGLC invite applications to the Assessment for Learning Project. The grants will support educators to fundamentally rethink the core role(s) that assessment can play to support student attainment of deeper learning. Nearly $2 million is available for 12-15 grants. Applications are due December 10, 2015. Learn more and apply here.

Student Reflections on Competency Education

• Andrew Rikard, a Junior at Davidson College in North Carolina studying English and Computer Science, reflects on what “student agency” means to him, including individualization, relationships, and equality.
• Sara Matlock, a junior at Boise High School in Idaho, reflects on design thinking and what it means to create student ownership of the learning process.

Teacher and Leader Preparation

• The Educational Leadership program in Texas Tech University’s College of Education will partner with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to build a grant-funded, competency-based training model for school principals. The $7.2 million federal Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant will impact leadership training in high-need schools in Texas, Louisiana and Indiana.
• Thomas College has announced it will be opening the Center for Innovation in Education which will offer a course of study designed to prepare education graduates to teach Maine’s high school proficiency-based learning curriculum.

Thought Leadership

• iNACOL’s Susan Patrick is referenced in Competency-based ed stresses success over seat time, which explores how competency education is gaining steam through pilots throughout the country.
• NewSchools Venture Fund created a two-part blog series on their commitment to diversity and equity. In part one, author Frances Messano discusses why education organizations need to diversity leadership. In part two, Frances explores goals and plans to diversify education leadership.
• Tom Vander Ark and Andy Calkins highlight ten examples of next generation learning in K-12 systems, which result in ten implications for higher education.
• Bonnie Lathram of Getting Smart highlights five ways learner profiles promote competency-based learning, including student ownership, anytime and anywhere learning, personalization, portability across systems, and the demonstration of college and career readiness.

Other News

• Learn how to turn student-teacher conferences into student-led meetings, and learn how all parties can play an important role in the learning process of children.
• Competency-based education is getting employers’ attention to fill gaps in workforce needs, after a study found that critical thinking and problem solving were the top competencies being sought in employees.
• In Grand Junction, Colorado, interviews with prospective school board members raise the issue of whether to become performance-based.

Resources

• The Maine Department of Education released Understanding Maine’s Guiding Principles, which are frameworks that convey the knowledge, skills and dispositions embedded in Maine’s Guiding Principles by describing ways students could, and may already, exhibit the hope and intentions behind them. (Background: The competency-based diploma legislation passed in 2011 requires that students demonstrate proficiency in Guiding Principles; this document helps school systems to actively prepare for this new requirement which takes effect in 2018.)
• This video provides an overview findings from a REL Northeast & Islands study of proficiency- or competency-based learning in the Northeast, drawing on twenty interviews in Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
• The Origins of Competency-Based Training provides a great overview on the history of theoretical origins of competency-based education.
• Thinking Way, Way, Way Outside the Box at the Donnell-Kay Foundation has been updated with new resources on the efforts to create a new education system for 0-5 year olds: Opportunity to Learn by Alan Gottlieb; Emergence of the Advocate Network; Implications for System Design; and an infographic.
• The National Governors Association released Expanding Student Success: A Primer on Competency-Based Education from Kindergarten Through Higher Education, which highlights three primary policy areas to open up major barriers to implement competency education.
• Competency-Based Education: An Overview for Michigan’s Superintendents is designed to provide Michigan superintendents with an introduction to competency education, on-the-ground work to transform education, and the role in policy. They cite the CompetencyWorks definition of competency education multiple times.
• CSSR released i3 New England Network Technical Assistance Platform, an interactive online technical assistance guide to support schools and districts in moving towards a culture of student-driven learning by sharing resources and experiences from the i3 New England Network for Personalization and Performance.

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