Giving Compass' Take:

•  A new report titled, iNACOL, shares strategies to help teachers with competency-based education, a learning style that offers personalized support to students.  

• How are learning styles that support the whole child potentially more effective in advancing academic achievement?

• Read more about the landscape of competency-based learning. 

As more schools attempt to make learning more student-centered and personalized, a new report has suggestions for helping teachers keep pace.

The report comes from iNACOL, a nonprofit that supports competency-based education. Titled Moving Toward Mastery: Growing, Developing and Sustaining Educators for Competency-Based Education, it outlines ways teachers can ensure their work in competency-based education is “learner-centered, equity-oriented and lifelong.”

Competency-based classrooms — usually defined as environments where students receive personalized support and progress through material at their own pace — can be both rewarding and challenging for teachers, as they balance increasing variety in how they instruct students, the report said.

The report shares 15 strategies to help the teaching profession in this field. Here are a few highlights:

  • Diversify pathways into the profession
  • Redesign accountability for reciprocity and improvement
  • Develop cultures of inclusion and learning
  • Increase flexibility for learner-centered practice
  • Establish structures for distributed leadership and collaboration
  • Facilitate professional learning that improves practice

Read the full article about strategies for competency-based education by Kate Stringer at The 74