CBE in the Classroom

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, we are going to look at competency-based education in the classroom. And for today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Soren Kierkegaard which states, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward." And I believe that directly applies to competency-based education. We plan it backwards. But when we teach it, we've gotta keep moving forwards.

Now, by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to define competency-based education, provide a rationale for implementing competency-based education, and compare some traditional instruction elements with competency-based education instruction.

So first and foremost, let's go ahead and take a look at the basic elements of competency-based education. Particularly, we're going to focus in on iNacol's five design principles of CBE. Now, in 2011, iNacol or the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, developed these various elements and design principles when working within competency-based education.

These people held that summit to really focus in on competency-based education. They included educators in their summit, instructional leaders, and various advocates of education to really help develop these working principles.

So when we look at these five design principles, you'll notice we have the idea that students are really advancing when they can show mastery, that students are ideally being empowered by those specific learning objectives and taking ownership over those, that the assessment that these students are encountering is meaningful and really becomes a positive learning experience, as well as when they are not able to show mastery, they are receiving that rapid, differentiated support to help them really get back into that learning, as well as the idea that the learning outcomes we're looking at are emphasizing the creation and application of knowledge, focusing on students applying what they've learned to those college and career readiness skills, making them good 21st century citizens.

So now, why? Why should we implement competency-based education? Well, there are many different reasons for using this approach, but here are just a couple. First and foremost, we need to be able to empower all students.

This gets at the idea that competency-based education really meets the needs of those individual learners and allows for that instruction to really be tailored to those students, helping them focus in on really gaining that control and being able to work within their own strengths and weaknesses to take advantage of that learning.

Now, we need to also provide opportunities for students to take advantage of technology. Since students have the ability to really set their own pace and learn best, they're able to focus in and work within the idea that they are really using that technology to their benefit, setting that own pace.

And then when they're assessed based oftentimes on the learning that they've done, they're able to link that knowledge and skills to what they're going to need to engage in that lifelong learning so really being college and career readiness specifically within those 21st century technology skills.

And finally, we need to provide more flexibility for those struggling students, that students who are having trouble within their area are getting that differentiated support, as well as students who are getting the information can continue to move on quickly based on the knowledge that they already have as opposed to moving in line with a class where everything is sort of geared toward the middle of the road.

Next, let's take a look at the comparison between competency-based education and more traditional education. So first and foremost, we're looking at the idea of mastery of competencies or those skills versus the mastery of competent-- or of content.

So within competency-based education, the goal of that instruction is really to help students master those knowledge or skills that they're going to need in order to be successful when they leave the classroom, whether they're going to college or into the career field, as opposed to more traditional education models where the goal is really to help students master what it is they need to know for that particular grade.

Another major difference is student centered versus teacher centered. In competency-based education, everything is entirely student centered. We're looking at meeting the individual needs of those students. And the instruction is then tailored to help meet those needs through the use of technology.

Whereas, in more traditional models, the instruction is really far more teacher centered. So the teacher is the one who is the keeper of all of the knowledge, and then they disseminate that knowledge based on when it works in their lesson plan for those students, so again, student centered versus teacher centered.

Another major difference when we compare the two is students being actively engaged as opposed to students as more of those passive receivers.

Again, very similar to the one before, in competency-based education, students are really actively engaging with those big, essential questions, those elements of inquiry, and really focusing in on learning through problem solving, using those skills that they have learned in order to help develop more confidence through their use in the long term, so those communication skills, collaborating with those around them, and then using those problem-solving skills both to help their work in the classroom as well as applying it to what they do outside.

As opposed to traditional learning models, where students are much more passively receiving that knowledge, sometimes even incredibly passively just sitting in that chair listening to another teacher talk to them about the information rather than experiencing it hands on. Also, students in this more traditional model tend to really not be as engaged in that learning.

Following closely after that is the idea of open-ended work with multiple possibilities as opposed to close-ended work with one right answer. When we look at traditional education, oftentimes students are posed questions that have one formulaic answer. And they either get it right, or they get it wrong.

Whereas, in competency-based education, students are taking some of those facts but expanding them and looking at those questions within a real-world application so that students are asked to really grapple with many possible different answers and work together to find all of the potential solutions, something, again, that's very similar to what they're going to experience when they are done in your classroom.

Finally, what we're really looking at here is lifelong success as opposed to in-school success. And I think all teachers would say our major goal is to really look at that lifelong success.

But when we look at more traditional education models, we're really only focusing based on what we do in that classroom on the student successfully mastering what they need to know for their specific grade level by the end of the year, or showing that they have done well on a standardized test, and then moving on to the next grade. As opposed to taking each individual skill and area of content knowledge and saying, I can grapple with this. I can show you that I've mastered it, and then I can move on to that next level.

Now that you've reached the end of the lesson, you are able to define competency-based education. You've been able to provide a rationale for implementing competency-based education. And you can compare traditional instruction with competency-based instruction.

Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, I want you to take just a moment for reflection. I'd like you to think just a little bit about some of those differences we discussed between traditional education and competency-based education and think about what are some small steps you could take to move from more traditional education models to competency-based education.

As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to check out the additional resources section that accompanies the video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to really help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skillset.