CompetencyWorks | August 2021

August 26, 2021

This newsletter shares recent CompetencyWorks blog posts and Aurora Institute resources, providing thought leadership and practical lessons from the field to support transformation toward personalized, competency-based K-12 schools and systems.

Aurora Institute Symposium 2021: Registration Now Open

The theme of this year’s Aurora Institute Symposium is Leading Competency-Based Education Redesign. Join the field’s largest gathering of education innovators implementing personalized, competency-based learning. The Aurora Institute Symposium will be held virtually on October 25-27, 2021. Sessions will include shifting to competency-based education, transforming education systems, modernizing professional learning, and more. Aurora Institute members can attend free of charge. Register online.

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

The CompetencyWorks blog provides brief reviews of new resources and research, including a new CBE school-design rubric, video examples of CBE educator competencies, a crosswalk between CBE principles and 20 EdTech tools, proficiency-based summative assessment resources, a new book on shifting to a learner-centered paradigm, and upcoming professional learning opportunities.

Building Habits of Success with the BEST Self-Direction Toolkit

A valuable new resource from the Building Essential Skill Today (BEST) Research-Practice Partnership supports developing and assessing the essential skill of self-direction. Learn about the BEST Self-Direction Toolkit and hear insights from Tony Doucet, one of the toolkit’s developers and a teacher at Souhegan High School, about how it’s used in his classroom and school. Doucet says the toolkit has helped students build deeper understanding and show deeper evidence of self-direction.

Reimagining the K-12 Content Map Starts with Reimagining the Process

reDesign wrapped up their CompetencyWorks blog series with an exploration of the process they used when convening 100 experts this summer to reimagine the K-12 content map. Jon Altbergs, Laurie Gagnon, and Rohan Menon describe how it “led to remarkable transformation in thinking about how to best serve students.” It also led to prototype content maps that can help ensure that all students develop and demonstrate powerful skills and knowledge.

For more news and updates in K-12 competency-based education, sign up for our monthly newsletters and follow the Aurora Institute on Twitter: @aurora_inst.

About CompetencyWorks

CompetencyWorks is an initiative that provides information and knowledge about competency-based education in the K-12 education system. Drawing on lessons learned by innovators and early adopters, CompetencyWorks is an online resource for sharing knowledge, original research and policy advances, and a variety of field perspectives. CompetencyWorks provides an informative blog with practitioner knowledge on key topics and papers on emerging issues, with resources curated from across the field of K-12 competency-based education.

Contact: Eliot Levine
[email protected]

CompetencyWorks | Aurora Institute