A Different Way to Learn

When it comes to assessing learning, it’s time for competency-based outcomes to replace seat time. It’s time for young learners to demonstrate skills – like reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development – versus knowing the 50 states of the United States or the first 20 elements on the periodic chart.

As EducationWeek reported recently (“It’s Hard to Shift to Competency-Based Learning. These Strategies Can Help”),

“School districts in every state now have the green light to establish competency-based education programs and models in their classrooms – but they have a lot of work to do on the operational side to make those efforts worth the investment of time and money.”

“Competency-based education refers to a diverse set of practices by which schools give students opportunities to learn at their own pace to master specific skills, often through projects of their choosing that dovetail with their interests. Several states have offered funding to schools to help them get competency-education programs off the ground, including Iowa, North Carolina, and Oregon.”

“Educators are interested in the model and supportive of some of its key components, even if largely unfamiliar with the practice.”

“Forty-one percent of educators in a recent EdWeek Research Center survey said they’d read about competency-based education but never seen it in action or tried it. Another 26 percent said they’d never heard of it before taking the nationally representative survey of 868 educators, which was conducted May 29 to June 19.”

“In a sign of their interest, 56 percent of survey respondents said they’d like to learn more about it, and another 13 percent said they know something about it and would like to try it. (Nineteen percent said they had no interest at all.)”

“Also, a majority of survey respondents said that, in five years, they expect their district or school to have at least taken steps toward adoption of competency-based education in some form.”

“But many are concerned about potential roadblocks to making the most of funding opportunities designed to help districts transition to competency-based education.”

“Slightly more than half of survey respondents said a major drawback to pursuing competency-based education is that teachers don’t know how to do it. Forty-two percent said eliminating traditional grades would confuse parents and students about how much learning had taken place.”

“More than a third of respondents said their schools cannot afford the staffing necessary to pull off a transformation of their district’s learning model. And slightly less than a quarter say school buildings would need to be improved in ways that would be too costly. Additional costs might come, for instance, from adding instructional space to allow more students to learn outside the traditional learning model and investing in technology students can use to learn at their own pace.”

“Experts on competency-based education say implementing the model is often tougher in a district where most staff members have no experience with it, or where they even lack familiarity with the concept.”

“’Schools and districts with a strong prior standards-based culture had an easier time adapting,’ said Amy Johnson, an education professor at the University of Southern Maine who has conducted extensive research on schools’ implementation of competency-based learning.”

“But there are approaches that work. They take time, patience, and often money.”

“Roughly two-thirds of educators who answered the EdWeek Research Center survey said the emphasis in competency-based education on measuring achievement by skills mastered rather than time spent in school is a benefit. Sixty percent said the same about the opportunity for students to learn at a rate that works for them.”

“’When competency-based systems are implemented well, they end the paradigm of teachers feeling that they need to go into the classrooms and teach all day by themselves, that they alone are responsible for whether their students fail or thrive,’ said Kate Gardoqui, senior associated for the Maine-based nonprofit Great Schools Partnership, which helps schools in several states transform their teaching and learning models. ‘It sends the exact opposite message to teachers.’”

“Here are some of the operational moves districts implementing competency-based education should consider making – and the hurdles they might encounter along the way, according to practitioners.”

“Get everyone on the same page…”

“Develop a portrait of a graduate, and orient students toward it….”

“Be open to potential benefits….”

And these are three “moves” traditional school districts have had a hard time making.

Too many districts are unable to get everyone on the same page because of political and cultural reasons.

We’ve discussed the fact that many districts are unable to execute the intricacies of a graduate portrait, even though most K-12 systems possess one.

And being open to potential benefits speaks to the time and patience piece above. Too many districts are just too impatient to invest the time for something like competency-based education to be successful.

That’s not to say competency-based education will not be successful. It will be successful – out of school. Whereas charters were the alternative for young learners and their families for the past 30 years or so, learning organizations that embrace competency-based work might be the new vanguard for smarter and stronger learning over the next 30 years.

Til tomorrow. SVB