Making Mastery Work: A Close-Up View of Competency Education

Posted by on December 10, 2012

Beyond regular attendance and Cs

A new report from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation looks at schools in the Proficiency-Based Pathways Project (PBP), which implements mastery-based approaches to teaching in rural, suburban, and inner-city regions in New England. Competency education is rooted in mastering a set of skills and knowledge rather than simply moving through a curriculum. Students work on skills or knowledge until they demonstrate understanding and ability to apply them; they then move on. They cannot advance simply by showing up to class a sufficient number of days and earning a grade just above failing. The report finds time-based policies and systems — from schedules to contracts to credit systems, at both the district and state level — often impede implementation of competency-based designs, yet educators find ways to create flexibility, starting within familiar structures but locating strategies to support individualized pacing. The biggest logistical challenge to competency-based initiatives is the lack of high-quality data and technological tools to assess and monitor student progress. Expansion of competency education will likely be aided by evolving state policies that allow districts or schools to opt out of seat-time requirements. Adoption of the Common Core standards will encourage consistency in developing competencies grounded in high-quality college-readiness standards, and the assessment systems being developed for these by multi-state consortia will support the need to measure complex knowledge and skills.

See the report: http://www.competencyworks.org/resources/making-mastery-work/