Pre-Conference Sessions

Competency-Based Assessment, Grading, and Reporting

Schools and districts around the country are shifting away from traditional grading practices and redesigning assessment, grading, reporting and credentialing structures that focus on sharing learners’ strengths and documenting growth over time. In this session, we will explore what this shift looks like in practice with models to better understand key decisions system have to make to undergo this shift including: 

• What outcomes do we assess?
• How do we collect evidence of and report on progress towards those outcomes?
• How do we do this work and support a transcript for learners to use for higher education admissions?

An Introduction to Competency Frameworks for Students, Educators, and Leaders

This workshop is designed to be a deep-dive, hands-on experience focused on introducing competency frameworks from across the country and providing guidance and information on how to plan, design, and implement learner-centered, competency frameworks and systems change. Participants will leave with access to the competency frameworks, including examples of educator and leader competencies, and concrete, actionable steps to begin the transformation to personalized and competency-based learning.

Competency-Based Education Policy Roundtable

Join the Aurora Institute and Education Commission of the States (ECS) for an engaging half-day convening about the policy levers state leaders can use to make personalized, competency-based education accessible to all learners. Hear from state leaders doing the work, learn about specific approaches to policy issues such as assessment and accountability, and leave with ideas for how to make meaningful change in your state.

Elevating Your Competency-Based Learning Journey with High Performing Collaborative Teams

Authors and veteran competency-based learning (CBL) practitioners Jonathan and Brian will share the knowledge, experiences, and solutions to common problems of practice they have gained in supporting schools, including their own, with the implementation of CBL in K-12. They will reference various resources from both their 2024 Solution Tree book co-written with Karin Hess, Elevating Competency-Based Learning in a PLC at Work©: Actionable Assessment, Defensible Evidence, and Equitable Grading and their 2022 Solution Tree book, Unpacking the Competency-Based Classroom Equitable, Individualized Learning in a PLC at Work® and facilitate guided conversations and reflection specific to Aurora Institute’s seven design principles of CBL.

Leading with Foresight: Advancing Competency-Based Learning in an AI-Driven World

How might we, as leaders, not just react to emerging trends, but anticipate and actively shape them using foresight techniques? The experience merges strategic AI integration with essential leadership skills like fostering a culture of trust and mastering effective communication to scale a culture of innovation across their teams. It begins with an introduction to AI technologies and their transformative impacts on the educational landscape. Participants will also develop core AI skills and explore key workplace trends, enabling them to enhance operational strategies. Throughout this experience, we will emphasize how these AI tools and strategies directly support the shift towards competency-based learning, ensuring that education is personalized, adaptive, and aligned with each student’s unique needs and goals.

Researchers Roundtable: Informing and Improving Personalized, Competency-Based, Deeper Learning

This meeting fosters a space for researchers and other stakeholders in competency-based/personalized/deeper learning to come together for information sharing, collective problem-solving, and networking. It provides an opportunity for everyone to gain and give practical, applicable insights into research and evaluation to inform and improve the field. We will share work underway and recent findings, go deep on a small number of problems of practice, provide consultancies on ongoing work, and do some networking.