CompetencyWorks | August 2017

Dear Colleagues: 
 

This week is Mastery Communications Week, hosted by Springpoint and partner organizations, which is a week dedicated to digital sharing and online collaboration focused on communications for competency education. Learn more by visiting their website or viewing the Mastery Week schedule, and join the conversation using #masteryweek. Chris Sturgis will be hosting a Twitter chat on Wednesday, August 16 at 3:00 p.m. ET on equity and mastery, so mark your calendars and weigh in using #masteryweek.

Attendee registration is open for the iNACOL Symposium on October 23-25 in Orlando. The Symposium features the best strand of sessions and workshops relating to competency education. You can register here.

There are three great Pre-Conference Workshop opportunities offered on October 23 to engage in deeper learning around competency education:

• Building a Personalized Learning System: Transparency, Culture and Courage (8:00-11:00 a.m. ET) — This is an in-depth learning opportunity for practitioners looking to get started in building a personalized, competency-based system, led by District 51’s Rebecca Midles, Ken Haptonstall and Leigh Grasso.
• Using Student Data to Drive Unit Design and Scheduling in a Personalized, Competency-Based System (8:00-11:00 a.m. ET) — Hosted by Doug Finn and Bill Zima, this workshop offers a tremendous opportunity to engage deeply around using student data to get students more engaged in the learning process by challenging them at their appropriate levels. 
• Building Understanding of Competency Education and Changing Grading Practices (1:00-4:00 p.m. ET) — Led by Thomas Gaffey, Sandra Moumoutjis and Sydney Schaef, this workshop explores grading practices and assessments in competency-based systems.

View all pre-conference workshops and register here.
 

Below are #inacol17 sessions and workshops within the Competency Education track, broken down into various topics.

Equity and Competency Education

• Competency-Based Education + Culturally Responsive Education = More Equitable and Effective Schools for All Learners with Jeremy Kraushar.
• Equity and Engagement in Action: What Does a Competency-Based Classroom Look Like that Truly Meets All Students Right Where They Are? with Sydney Schaef, Antonia Rudenstine and Dixie Bacallao.

Performance Assessments

• Are Performance Tasks Really For Everyone? Designing Rigorous Tasks for Equity and Engagement, Ensuring Every Student Crosses the Finish Line with Antonia Rudenstine, Dixie Bacallao and Sydney Schaef.
• Performance Assessment as a Vehicle for Transformation with Christine Landwehrle and Bethany Bernasconi.

District and School Conversion

• Competency as the Leverage Point in School Redesign: Sustaining the Work through Coherence and Alignment with Mark Kostin, Moises Nunez and Katie Thompson.
• How to Transition to a Personalized Competency-Based Education System with Doug Finn and Jennifer S. Norford.
• Pop Up Problems of Practice in Competency Education with Chris Sturgis, Susan Patrick and Virgel Hammonds.
• What It Takes to Transition to Competency Education with Josie Jordan.

Getting Started

• Building the Consensus for Personalized Learning and Competency-Based Education with Karla Phillips and Kelly Brady.
• Preparing Each Student for College, Career and Life with Rose Colby and Barbara Bray.
• What Is Competency-Based Education? with Jeremy Kraushar and Joy Nolan.

Future Directions

• Engaging Educators in Personalized, Competency-Based Learning: Are You Walking the Talk? Learn How Micro-Credentials and Other Strategies Pave the Way with Patricia Deklotz and Theresa Ewald.
• The Rise, Risks and Rewards of Competency Education and New Credentials Across the Education Pipeline with Stephanie Krauss.
• Where Do We Go From Here: Reflections on Future Directions of Competency Education with Chris Sturgis and Susan Patrick.

Leadership

• Focus on the Learning: Simple Ideas that Can Change Everything with Kelly Young, Virgel Hammonds and Connie Yowell.
• Fostering Leadership Capacity to Support Competency-Based Learning Systems in Schools: Voices from the Field with Brian Stack, Rose Colby and Kyle Repucci.
• Leading a Competency-Based System from Board of Education Perspective with Dr. Pamela Swanson, Larry Dean Valente, Ryan McCoy and Max Math.

New Models

• StorySLAM: Teaching and Learning in New Ways with Victoria Crispin.
• An Open Source Competency-Based Model V3.0 with Thomas Gaffey and Sydney Schaef.

Deeper Learning

• It's Not about Pace: Using Competency to Deepen Learning with Angela Hardy, David Ruff and Reed Dyer.
• Learning from the Practices of 3 Leading-Edge Schools to Support Competency-Based School Change that Leads to Deeper, Student-Driven Learning with Joe DiMartino and Don Siviski.

Policy

• Building a Foundation for Competency-Based Education – State by State with Karla Phillips and Matt Williams.
• Competency-Based Education Grading Policy with Julianna Charles Brown and Jeremy Kraushar.
• Cross-State Conversations: An Interactive Discussion about an Approach to Supporting State Educational Agencies Engaged in Advancing Competency-Based Education with Wendy Blumenthal and Janet Twyman.
• Policy for Practitioners: Making the Shift to Competency Education with David Ruff and Erin Dukeshire.

Culture and Practices

• FIP-ing Your Competencies: Mapping Learning Targets to Competencies with Renee Owen and Jennifer McCrary.
• Peeking Under the Hood: Taking a Close Look at the Tricky Details That Make the Mastery-Based Learning Engine Work with Scott Ellis, Rui Bao and Maquita Alexander.
• Supporting Competency-Based Learning Practices with Positive Youth Development with Sam Sherwood.
• What Does Competency Education Look Like in the Classroom? Using Survey Tools to Measure Teacher Practices and Student Experiences Related to Competency-Based Education with David Blumenthal and Wendy Surr.

Below are helpful links to learn more about the Symposium:

• Register to attend.
• Browse all sessions and workshops.
• View all pre-conference workshops.
• Book your travel and hotel. Make your hotel reservation by Friday, September 23 to receive the group rate.
• View the conference agenda.

CompetencyWorks is hosting a webinar on developments across the field of K-12 competency-based education on Tuesday, August 22 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. Join this webinar to hear CompetencyWorks co-founders Susan Patrick and Chris Sturgis reflect on the current state of competency-based education. Register here and share this opportunity with your networks on Twitter:

• Register for @CompetencyWorks #webinar on developments of #CompetencyEd field & emerging issues http://ow.ly/2cRr30dLon1 #CBE