{"id":2747,"date":"2013-05-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T12:50:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T17:50:15","slug":"site-visit-takeaways","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/","title":{"rendered":"Site Visit Takeaways"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3473 alignright\" alt=\"logo\" src=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png\" width=\"176\" height=\"64\" \/><\/a>As you may know, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.achieve.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ACHIEVE <\/a>has established a Competency-Based Pathways Work Group to examine how competency education may impact assessment, accountability, graduation requirements, and other state policies.\u00a0 Working with leaders from ten states, Cory Curl and Anne Bowles are providing tools, research, and analysis so that state policymakers can assess opportunities to support competency education.<\/p>\n<p>Cory and Anne have just completed site visits to Maine, Kentucky, Illinois, and Colorado, and shared their findings during a webinar (inspiring me to think about sharing insights that way rather than the blog&#8230;.Hmm, what do you think?) Given that others had visited as well, we shared our insights. Here are a few of the highlights:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.danvilleschools.net\/site\/default.aspx?PageID=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Danville, Kentucky<\/a> has been getting attention for their project-based learning\u00a0 (See the show on <a href=\"http:\/\/video.pbs.org\/video\/2364990349\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PBS<\/a>.) They see the ACT as a meaningful metric for determining college and career readiness and are moving toward improving ACT scores based on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.act.org\/solutions\/college-career-readiness\/college-readiness-benchmarks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">college ready benchmarks<\/a>.\u00a0 Their website explains, \u201cStudents are considered to be college-ready by meeting specific benchmark scores for each content-area tested by the ACT. EXPLORE and PLAN also provide benchmark scores that tell us whether or not students are on track to meet those important ACT readiness scores. Scores from these assessments are also included in a school and district\u2019s overall score.\u201d They are now in the process of beginning to weave competency education into their work, keeping a strong focus on equity.<!--more--><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They visited four districts in Maine (hyperlinks will take you to resources on each of the districts <a href=\"http:\/\/maine.gov\/doe\/cbp\/case-studies\/rsu57.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RSU 57<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/maine.gov\/doe\/cbp\/case-studies\/rsu2.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RSU 2<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/maine.gov\/doe\/cbp\/case-studies\/rsu18.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RSU 18<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/competencybasedpathways\/home\/resources\/spanning-the-grades--a-look-at-elementary-middle-school-and-high-school-competency-based-models\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MSAD 15<\/a>, all members of the <a href=\"http:\/\/mainecustomizedlearning.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Maine Cohort for Customized Learning<\/a>.) The MCCL has several strong partnerships, including the<a href=\"http:\/\/greatschoolspartnership.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Great Schools Partnership<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reinventingschools.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reinventing Schools Coalition<\/a>, and are working with the state to ensure that the process of converting to personalized, proficiency-based is a grassroots process.\u00a0 Right now districts are embracing proficiency-based education in K-8 and exploring implementation in high schools.\u00a0 Most of the colleges and universities are trying to reduce the sense of risk for high schools by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newenglandssc.org\/pledge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pledging their full support for proficiency-based<\/a>.\n<ul>\n<li>Student voice and choice are driving the changes in the classroom. The job of teachers is to keep an eye on how students are progressing and helping them stay on pace.<\/li>\n<li>Transparency is at the heart of equity in Maine\u2019s proficiency-based system.\u00a0 There is no embarrassment for students who haven\u2019t scored a 3 on a standard; rather, it is reinforced that mistakes and errors are part of the learning process.\u00a0 However, it isn\u2019t acceptable for a student to move on or to graduate without a 3 on learning targets. There is such strong commitment to a \u201c3 or above\u201d that it has created a cultural shift.<\/li>\n<li>Interventions are triggered whenever students are not on \u201cteacher pace.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Interventions can range from asking for help from peers, mini-lessons from teachers, extra help during the day, and support before and after school.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Young Women\u2019s Leadership Charter, no longer a fully competency-based school, shared some of their insights in how competency education can run into problems when there isn\u2019t enough attention to pacing. Too many students found themselves in 12th grade trying to run around and demonstrate proficiency in standards that were to have been met in 9th grade.\u00a0 The failure to master those earlier standards also impacted their learning overall. Achievement scores and graduation rates both suffered, but are now on the upswing. It\u2019s a lesson to all of us to think about how we structure segments of learning to make sure students are advancing every step along the way.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.adams50.org\/site\/default.aspx?PageID=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adams 50<\/a>, (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsadams50.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">check out the resources on their wiki<\/a>) outside of Denver, Colorado has been able to lift all of their schools out of the lowest-performing categories over the past 3 years, which they attribute to the Competency-Based System (CBS). On May 9th they announced that the trend is continuing \u201cwith Adams County School District 50 once again [showing] improvement in third grade reading results on statewide TCAP testing.\u201d District 50 is one of just two school districts in the metro area to show improvement over three consecutive years The Competency-Based System is most fully realized at the elementary school level where students have experienced only competency-based learning, while the shift to competency is continuing in middle and high school.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Some other takeaways from the site visits:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0 Competencies can be closely aligned with standards.\u00a0 Schools don\u2019t have to start completely from scratch in designing their competencies. (See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.competencyworks.org\/resources\/briefing-papers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art and Science of Designing Competencies<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The concept of teacher pace helped illuminate the dynamic in which supports need to be available so students can spend more time working in order to stay on teacher pace.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Many educators are fully supportive of proficiency-based learning and emphasized that they wouldn\u2019t want to return to a traditional classroom.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The work is complex and challenging. Peers and partnerships are a vital part of getting proficiency-based system right.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned\u00a0 &#8212; we\u2019ll hear about ACHIEVE\u2019s policy ideas and tools in the fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","mapsvg_location":""},"legacy_category":[],"issue":[368,371],"location":[114,119,120,94],"class_list":["post-2747","cw_post","type-cw_post","status-publish","hentry","issue-issues-in-practice","issue-learn-lessons-from-the-field","location-colorado","location-illinois","location-kentucky","location-maine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Site Visit Takeaways - Aurora Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Site Visit Takeaways - Aurora Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As you may know, ACHIEVE has established a Competency-Based Pathways Work Group to examine how competency education...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Aurora Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AuroraInst\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-05T17:50:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Aurora_Inst\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"Chris Sturgis\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/\",\"name\":\"Site Visit Takeaways - Aurora Institute\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-22T04:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-02-05T17:50:15+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/\",\"name\":\"Aurora Institute\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Aurora Institute\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-logo.png\",\"width\":714,\"height\":156,\"caption\":\"Aurora Institute\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AuroraInst\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/Aurora_Inst\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/inacolvideo\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Site Visit Takeaways - Aurora Institute","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Site Visit Takeaways - Aurora Institute","og_description":"As you may know, ACHIEVE has established a Competency-Based Pathways Work Group to examine how competency education...","og_url":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/","og_site_name":"Aurora Institute","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AuroraInst","article_modified_time":"2020-02-05T17:50:15+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@Aurora_Inst","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"4 minutes","Written by":"Chris Sturgis"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/","url":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/","name":"Site Visit Takeaways - Aurora Institute","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png","datePublished":"2013-05-22T04:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2020-02-05T17:50:15+00:00","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/site-visit-takeaways\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo.png"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/","name":"Aurora Institute","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#organization","name":"Aurora Institute","url":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-logo.png","width":714,"height":156,"caption":"Aurora Institute"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AuroraInst","https:\/\/x.com\/Aurora_Inst","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/inacolvideo"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cw_post\/2747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cw_post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cw_post"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"legacy_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/legacy_category?post=2747"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2747"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}