Giving Compass' Take:

• Research by Getting Smart - commisioned by XQ Institute - found that competency-based education is experiencing growth which can be helped by concerted efforts to develop new tools. 

• What are pitfalls of competency-based education? How can funders help to build stakeholder buy-in for competency-based education?

• Read about taking the long-view on policies for competency-based education.

Research for this paper — which included in-depth interviews with more than 50 educators, analyses of more than 40 related publications, and dozens of school visits and observations of today’s competency-based learning models in action — uncovered real enthusiasm for competency-based education.

The field has advanced significantly in the past few years. Around the country, motivated teachers and well-implemented competency-focused systems are helping students take responsibility for their own learning, experience deeper learning, and develop the habits of lifelong learners. And new resources and tools, including blockchain technology and machine learning, could make the path to quality easier for educators.

Despite recent progress, significant challenges continue to impede widespread adoption of competency-based approaches and models. Barriers include a lack of common definitions, transition challenges to support new roles for teachers and students, a lack of sufficient tools and resources, technical challenges around the inability to combine feedback from different sources, and the need for more descriptive transcripts accepted by postsecondary institutions.

So how can we strengthen our collective ability to innovate and build capacity for competency-based education? Getting Smart recommends that people across the field concentrate their efforts on a set of core system components, including new competency-based networks and school models, new curriculum and assessment tools, a more coherent approach to developing exponential technology, innovation in overcoming technical barriers, and continued advocacy and case studies. Getting Smart also urges much greater alignment between K-12 and higher education.

Overall, Getting Smart’s findings indicate that the shift to competency-based education is occurring rapidly, right now, and that there are significant opportunities to help make it happen faster, better, and more equitably. Importantly, they conclude that “real progress will depend on an ambitious and fundamental rethinking of what graduates need to know and be able to do, what evidence will be used to demonstrate and assess their learning, and, ultimately, how learning will be credentialed.” Readers will find these and other findings, recommendations, and observations throughout the report.

Read the full article about competency-based education by Getting Smart at XQ Institute.