{"id":7357,"date":"2017-07-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/bringing-voices-together-for-competency-education-and-performance-assessment\/"},"modified":"2020-02-27T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T19:46:08","slug":"bringing-voices-together-for-competency-education-and-performance-assessment","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/bringing-voices-together-for-competency-education-and-performance-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Voices Together for Competency Education and Performance Assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Laurie Gagnon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This post originally appeared at the Center for Collaborative Education<\/a> on June 29, 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week was a big week for all those who believe that we can create an education system that meets the need of each child in finding his or her pathway to a successful and productive life. In the field of personalized, competency education,\u00a0CompetencyWorks<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0iNACOL\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0National Summit on K-12 Competency-Based Education<\/a>, \u201cconvened 100 leading innovators to move the field of competency-based education through the next generation of ideas and actionable outcomes, with a specific focus on equity and diversity.\u201d Closer to home, the Center for Collaborative Education, in partnership with the\u00a0Annenberg Institute for School Reform<\/a>, released the 46th issue of\u00a0Voices in Urban Education (VUE)<\/a>\u00a0focusing on performance assessment.<\/p>\n

As the school year comes to a close, these two events have generated much to follow up on, connecting to work in progress and yet to come. Here are three initial thoughts.<\/p>\n

Equity is at the center of this work.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Equity needs to both be embedded in all that we do and\u00a0to be pursued as an explicit intention of our work with its own learning agenda. Among the 100\u00a0attendees at the summit, specific attention was paid to racial diversity with 41% people of color\u00a0participating. Equity was the center of the learning agenda for the Competency-Based Education\u00a0Summit.<\/p>\n

Designing for equity and from the student experience are inseparable from attaining a\u00a0quality competency education system. If we want competency education to have different\u00a0results than our existing sort and rank system, we need to pay attention to racial justice as a key\u00a0element of equity. In our definitions of success for our students and graduates, we need to\u00a0explore what it means to be a citizen of a democracy and a global world. Beyond college and\u00a0career ready, we want every child to be ready for a fulfilling life and to thrive in a multicultural\u00a0world. That being said, anti-racist education should be included as we redesign and redefine\u00a0curriculum. Repeating the mantra \u201call children\u201d is not enough. Colorblind doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

Performance assessment is an integral part\u00a0<\/strong>of effective competency education.\u00a0<\/strong>Performance assessment is a powerful entry point to rethink teaching and learning and to\u00a0rethink systems for how students demonstrate what they know and can do. Performance\u00a0assessment is a key process for producing and documenting both formative and summative\u00a0evidence of student learning in a competency education system. While performance\u00a0assessment can be implemented within a traditional system, as practice deepens and\u00a0performance assessment is used with fidelity (e.g., with capstone and portfolio systems), the\u00a0process naturally leads to rethinking traditional approaches to curriculum, promotion and\u00a0graduation, and reporting. Performance assessment and competency-based principles are\u00a0aligned. They are working together to shift teaching practices, school culture, and systems as\u00a0seen in\u00a0the\u00a0NH Performance Assessment for Competency Education (PACE)\u00a0work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Communication matters deeply.<\/strong>\u00a0As one of many organizations working in the competency\u00a0education field, we need to share our work and understand how others are approaching the\u00a0same elements of quality. Educators cannot transform the system alone. The more we\u00a0coordinate, the more likely we will be able to create the multiple pathways that schools, districts,and states need to create high quality personalized, competency-based systems that produce\u00a0different results\u00a0\u2013\u00a0that are equitable and fair. With the public as well, clear messaging about how\u00a0competency education can shift us away from student ranking and towards a world where every\u00a0person reaches their full potential in their own way.<\/p>\n

One lesson coming out of\u00a0VUE 46 and the National Summit is this: It\u2019s time to\u00a0apply\u00a0what we\u00a0know from work to date to implement fully and build momentum for positive change towards\u00a0competency education and its essential corollary, performance assessment.<\/p>\n

See also:<\/p>\n