Competency Based Instruction in Action

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. Today, we're going to be looking at competency-based instruction in action. And for today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by John Dewey, which states, "Education is not preparation for life-- education is life itself."

Now, by the time you are done with the lesson today, you will be able to review some examples of competency-based education within K12 schools. So let's go ahead and take a look at some of that competency-based education, specifically with the instructional development within some schools so that you can really see what it looks like in practice.

So our first major example is at Green Hills Middle School. And this example really focuses in on the idea of CBE, specifically individualized learning based on the needs of the students. So at Green Hills Middle School, students are often given the opportunity to do what they need in terms of their learning during what's called a workshop day, which really allows them a lot of individual choice.

So on this workshop day, students can work on any geometry topic. And then they're encouraged to not only work during that day, but also to self-assess, determine what it is that they already know within that area and then what they need help on. Once they've figured out that self-assessment, they can then go search out those resources, whether they are electronic resources, or apps, working with vary manipulatives, or really getting a lot of that assistance from a teacher or another peer to help develop the knowledge and the skills that they've assessed they need.

Now, students are not told exactly what they're going to do on that day. Rather, they have that individual choice. They can choose what it is that they need help on or whatever helps them learn most effectively. So that's a wonderful way of incorporating elements of CBE in to your school.

The next example we're going to look at is from Fairview High School, and this is a senior capstone project. So at Fairview High School, seniors develop a certain project that they choose based on a topic that they are passionate about. Now, the project really requires them to make use of the competencies and the skills that they've learned, as well as the knowledge that they've acquired and developed while in school.

Once they kind of combine all that together, they select a topic that's really meaningful to them. Perhaps some students would look at the legalization of drugs or investigate a certain element of social media. Others might look at the obesity epidemic or some medical research. And others still might go more of an artistic or a performance route. So students are really allowed to focus in on what is interesting to them.

And then through that project, they work with a mentor, someone who is an expert in that field that they can seek out to help advise them. The capstone can be really powerful because it encourages students to not only have a voice in what their learning looks like, but also to choose the topics that are more interesting to them and meaningful to them and allow them to really apply those skills. This is a wonderful way of bridging what happens in high school with what they will go on to do either in college or within their career.

The third example I want to talk to you about is from Northwest Elementary School, and this is really looking at a school that is non-graded. Now, when we talk about non-graded, I don't necessarily mean the work is non-graded, but rather that students are not divided up into grades. So the school does not designate grade levels for language arts.

Rather, what they do at Northwest Elementary School is group students according to the competencies that they're working on. Now, this might be for a particular learning task or activity that they're doing or grouped by student needs or interests. All of this flexible grouping within the elementary school really allows students to work within their certain areas of need, not based just on how old they are.

Now, this flexible grouping is absolutely necessary, and the students are then frequently grouped based on whether or not they have mastered that certain competency. So when we look at that flexible grouping, you'll notice that, again, it's just within one specific area. This does not mean that you need to revamp the entire school, but you can focus in on apply this in certain areas to really focus more on student mastery and their individual learning needs, not just that student's age or grade.

The last example that I want to talk you through is from Clearwater Elementary, and this really looks at the idea of student ownership in learning. I think it's really neat to see this at the elementary level. So what happened at Clearwater-- a little background-- was that the school wasn't meeting their AYP, or what's known as the Adequate Yearly Progress, specifically within reading that was required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

Now, so what the teachers did, noticing that they weren't reaching that, they conducted a school-wide achievement test to really figure out where those learning gaps were, along with what the individual needs of their students were. And what they then decided to implement was really a student-directed approach to reading. So what students do is they go and they select their own reading materials.

Rather than all of them focusing on one specific grade level book or a specific Basal reader, what they do is they determine their own reading materials, and then during language arts time they get to participate in one of five different centers. They can either read to themselves. They can read with a friend. They can listen. They can work on writing. Or they can work on word or vocabulary work.

And then the teacher really moves out of that role of requiring those students to read a very specific piece of knowledge, rather than the teacher now is becoming the facilitator so the students can really take ownership over that learning. And the choice that they have, along with doing work that is more personalized to them, at their own level, within their own interests really helps to promote the mastery of those competencies. So you'll notice how that really fits into the idea of competency-based education, where it is highly focused and centered in on the individual learners' needs.

Now that you have finished the end of the lesson, you are able to review some examples of competency-based education in K12 schools. You've looked at the competency-based instruction within education and really focused in on how that can benefit and be effective for learners. Now that we've finished, I'd like you to take just a moment for reflection. After seeing some of these examples of competency-based instruction in action, what do you think is one way that you could incorporate some competency-based instruction into your teaching methods?

For more information on how to apply what you've learned in this video, please view the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. The additional resources section includes hyperlinks that are useful for applications of the course material, including a brief description of each available resource.