Introduction to “Applying Competencies, Outcomes, and Standards to Curriculum Development

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day. And welcome to our course on Applying Competencies, Outcomes, and Standards in Curriculum Development. Today, we are just beginning. And I'm going to give you a little introduction to what you are going to find within this course.

As you will begin to notice with every tutorial that we do, I begin with a quote. And today is no different. So for today's quote, I've chosen one by William Throsby Bridges which states, "Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities." So just remember as we go through that even though there is an external opportunity bringing this to your attention, the true beginning of all of this knowledge is within you and what you can take and use in your own teaching practices.

Now, by the end of this unit, there will be a number of objectives and learning goals that you'll meet. First, you will be able to analyze the differences between standards and competencies, distinguishing between the knowledge and the skills. You'll be able to evaluate Deeper Learning theory and all of its connections to competency-based instruction.

You'll be able to develop a unit plan using the Understanding by Design template and mapping the aligned competencies to the standards and outcomes. And finally, you will be able to reflect on how competency-based approaches really increase the authenticity and deeper learning within that curriculum unit.

What I'd like to do now is go through each of these objectives in a little more detail and really give you some examples of what you are going to see as this course develops. So the first objective is that you can analyze the differences between standards and competencies, distinguishing between knowledge and skills.

So what that looks like-- there is a real emphasis put on the foundations of competency-based instruction really understanding all of the different pieces of vocabulary that go apart and with that. You'll look at those various elements of what learning goals are in relation to skills, in relation to competencies. And this has a vast array of applications within your classroom, as well as things that you can do as a professional in aiding those around you.

We then look at the standards and the competencies, how closely they're linked, and some tips on how those standards and competencies can be integrated into curriculum development. And then finally, there are tons of examples. So taking a look at all of the different avenues and the different subjects that you could be using these elements within and your teaching practices and seeing real-life examples so that it doesn't seem as far away. Obviously, you can take elements of these examples and directly apply them to your teaching.

The next objective states that you can evaluate the Deeper Learning theory and its connection to competency-based instruction. You'll notice here that there was a huge emphasis put on the history of Deeper Learning-- really understanding where these various ideas come from. That's super helpful for us as educators because we live in a world where new ideas are thrown our way every single day. So understanding the foundations behind them are really important.

Next, there are a lot of practical approaches to Deeper Learning so really looking at the various ways that you can infuse Deeper Learning into the classroom. What I love about this is there is a direct application to what you do in your classroom. But there are so many ways that you can apply these learning approaches to other areas of your life.

And then finally, really connecting a lot of the competency-based education with various elements of Deeper Learning, really looking at how all of that connects back to the standards, reminding us that we are always focusing on those standards and what students need to know.

The third objective is that you can develop a unit plan using Understanding by Design template and mapping the aligned competencies to the standards and outcomes. This is where everything goes from theory into practice, really looking at the different ways to use all of these ideas to create a curriculum map, a unit of study, specific lesson plans.

So you'll notice that there is a huge emphasis on Understanding by Design and the stages of design so that you can really make that much more manageable rather than one broad, overarching statement "now apply this to all of your curriculum development." That's a little less helpful rather than breaking it down, which is what we do.

Then you were provided with many different Understanding by Design unit templates and other materials that are available to you to be able to put this into practice with your specific teaching elements.

And then there were a lot of tips as we go through so planning tips, just things to remember. Because a lot of this is going to be so individualized to what is done in your specific classroom, a lot of these tips are helpful to remember as you go through and apply what you've learned in your specific situation.

The final objective is that you can reflect on how competency-based approach increases the authenticity and deeper learning on the curriculum unit. So here we are going through the number of different ways that you can reflect on competency-based education looking at what went well, what didn't go well, and really reflecting on changes that you want to make.

I always say that the reflection is the most important part of what we do both in the classroom and out because it really gives you that opportunity to stop, to breathe, and to look back over what it is that you are doing.

You'll really begin to reflect specifically on how competency-based education and Deeper Learning work together and the things that you want to consider as the benefits for those two approaches and how they are very similar-- ways to use both of them to help increase the learning in your classroom.

So let's go ahead and quickly review. These are the four major areas that you are going to be delving into, major objectives that you will reach by the end of the unit. And you'll notice that they really build on each other. So first, there is the emphasis on really understanding what standards and competencies, knowledge, and skills are. Then you'll be able to really look at those and how they play within the concepts of Deeper Learning theory and competency-based instruction.

Once you have that base knowledge, then you look at developing that unit plan using Understanding by Design and all the various templates provided. And finally, once we've done all of that, we have the opportunity to really reflect on what we think of that competency-based approach and how it can be applied in the classroom. I'm so glad that you are joining us for this learning experience. I hope that you have a wonderful time. And we'll see you with the first lesson.