The school is pushing the bounds of blended learning with a Flex model that is competency-based.
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If that growth takes place in competency-based learning environments, this will be even more the case.
But no other state system is offering competency-based bachelor's degrees on a systemwide basis.
Competency-based, digital learning executed well is tailor made for the purpose of intrinsically motivating all students.
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If we were instead using assessments in a competency-based learning system, however, then the equation would change.
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Common Core creates a huge opportunity for innovation and personalization and the implementation of a competency-based learning system.
FORBES: Could Competency-Based Learning Save the Common Core?
Its low-cost online programs rely on competency-based progression, not class-time or credit hours.
The Toyota example illustrates more how a competency-based learning system would work.
FORBES: Could Competency-Based Learning Save the Common Core?
The really sad part of this story is how often this type of person is rewarded in a competency-based system.
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My single best idea for reforming K-12 education is to transform the system into a competency-based system powered by digital learning.
Wisconsin officials tout the UW Flexible Option as the first to offer multiple, competency-based bachelor's degrees from a public university system.
It recognises the prior learning and life experiences that adults have already gained and sees the training of adults as a competency-based process of lifelong learning.
Moving from a policy environment that rewards inputs like seat time to one that values student outcomes in a competency-based learning environment is critical to create smarter demand.
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Would competency-based learning help to alleviate each of these concerns?
FORBES: Could Competency-Based Learning Save the Common Core?
Indeed, Common Core and competency-based learning should be a natural fit, as the former creates learning maps for students to master that can shift the emphasis from time to mastery of deeper learning.
FORBES: Could Competency-Based Learning Save the Common Core?
We live in time that has moved well beyond competency driven models, yet organizations still primarily use competency-based interviews, competency-based development, competency-based performance reviews, and competency-based rewards as their framework for doing business.
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As a result of these, along with the competency-based learning environments that all of the models will be pushing, there will also need to be new thinking on how to evaluate these models.
Coleman and Schmidt also properly warned about the possibility that competency-based learning might mean students just zipping past concepts without truly mastering them (Tom Vander Ark has written about this concern more here).
FORBES: Could Competency-Based Learning Save the Common Core?
Elsewhere, some schools offer competency-based credits or associate degrees in areas such as nursing and business, while Northern Arizona University plans a similar program that would offer bachelor's degrees for a flat fee, said spokesman Eric Dieterle.
As Jayson Boyers argues over at the Huffington Post, competency-based education omits the social and relationship-based aspects of a college education, which often yield as much career benefit as classroom knowledge to those just entering the workforce.
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Unfortunately, for both students and the employers who would hire them, the increasing difficulty in securing the work experience necessary to demonstrate competency sans degree favors the less-rigorous test it and forget it model of competency-based learning.
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At least one blended-learning school, Summit Public Schools, is partnering to build its own solution to the problem and use content from different sources to support the new competency-based learning model it is developing, which seems like a smart backward integration.
Of course, if there were instead systems of assessments in a competency-based learning system built for students to take an assessment on-demand when they were ready to demonstrate mastery on specific competencies, we would see a different picture develop with assessments that left no doubt that they were different.
FORBES: Could Competency-Based Learning Save the Common Core?
This may make sense as a way to judge a state (although there may be legitimate questions if it makes sense when moving to a competency-based learning system and away from one based on time), but it creates some problems for judging schools to where students are transferring in the midst of their high school experience.
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In addition to the argument about the competency-based education approach presenting a poor simulacrum of the traditional higher education experience, there is also the nagging question as to whether the students who pursue this type of accreditation have truly gained the same level of subject area knowledge and expertise as those who have slogged through four years of course work.
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Unlike regular degree programs, which provide a macro education on a general topic (say, Computer Science), badges certify micro-based competency in a very specific skill (say, JavaScript).
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