Embark Education

To prepare students for the cultural shifts necessary for CBE, schools must create an environment that fosters risk-taking for students and adults.

Strong relationships are the foundation of personalized learning. 

Fundamentally, students must feel known and valued for CBE to work well. Competency-based education requires students to try things, fail, and then try them again using what they learned the first time. This cycle of attempt, feedback, and revision may be unusual for students with more traditional learning experiences. Schools can nurture a culture of continuous improvement by normalizing feedback across all areas of the school (e.g., student-to-student, teacher-to-student, student-to-teacher) and by celebrating growth and success. 

This is also true for adults as they learn how to design problem-based learning experiences that center on the student instead of the content or the instructor. To achieve this, adults can provide students with opportunities to share feedback on how Studios felt for them and what they might encourage the teacher to do differently the next time. 

In competency-based education, relationships must be fostered among adults, families, and the greater community, as well as between teachers and students, because learning happens everywhere, not only within the school walls.

Building 21 has created both Leader Competencies and Teacher Competencies to capture the knowledge and skills adults need to facilitate CBE.

To support adult professional growth and development as they learn to implement CBE, Building 21 has created one set of competencies for teachers and another set for leaders. Teachers and leaders use their respective competencies and associated continua to self-assess their progress, identify areas for growth and improvement, and set goals. They can also work with peers and coaches to implement new strategies and ideas, get feedback, and reflect on their progress toward individual goals. Competencies and Continua for Teachers Competencies and Continua for Leaders

Successful implementation of the CBE model requires teachers to have significant time allocated for professional development, collaboration, and coaching. For example, in Building 21’s lab schools, students are released two hours early once each week for professional development and have collaboration time built into their master schedule.

CBE supports additional scheduling flexibility, but the specific design of a school’s master schedule should be guided by its unique goals and priorities for teaching and learning.

Since CBE organizes teaching and learning around progression-based competencies, schools employing this model do not need to uphold traditional course-based, grade-based, age-based, and time-based structures. As one example, CBE allows schools to mix students across grades, since they can be working on the same competencies but at different levels. How schools choose to use time will vary based on their specific priorities and goals. Rethinking the Master Schedule in Competency-Based Schools

A few examples of schedule adaptations include:

• Interdisciplinary blocks – Breaking down traditional course structures in favor of interdisciplinary blocks, where teams of teachers across content areas co-design projects that give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning across competency areas.
• Mixed-grade learning & choice – Creating a schedule that allows for mixed-grade learning for part or all of a day so students can choose or rotate through activities based on both their interest and on the competencies they still need to work on.
• Teacher professional learning – Ensuring teachers have collaborative planning time built into their schedules, as well as personal and professional development time.
• External partnerships – Partnering with community businesses and organizations to allow half-day, credit-bearing learning experiences each week such as job shadowing, internships, and community service.

Schools should involve family and community stakeholders in the planning and implementation of CBE to help meet student needs both within and outside of school.

When a school decides to make the shift to CBE, Building 21 recommends that they establish an advisory council that includes a variety of stakeholders, including students’ family members and local community members. In addition to providing input about the transition, family and community members establish lasting partnerships with the school that influence what and how students learn. For instance, in CBE, students engage in learning experiences outside of the classroom, sometimes in local businesses and organizations. This level of partnership requires investment from the local community in the students, in their learning, and in the mission of CBE.

Competency-based education benefits from the use of flexible classroom arrangements.

Schools should think through the type of furniture and classroom orientation that would best meet the needs of student-centered, problem-based learning. For instance, many problem-based activities will be conducted in groups, so schools may want to invest in tables or orient desks in pods. Ideally, classrooms should be rearranged easily to meet the needs of current investigations. Learning Space Design Principles

Tracking dashboards and platforms that CBE schools use need to reflect the unique characteristics of a school’s model, such as rating and tracking progress on their specific competencies. 

Building 21 has created dashboards that make data transparent, actionable, and user-friendly for students, families, teachers, and leaders using personalized competency-based models. A few examples are below.

Competency Tracking Platform – Some schools use the open-source platform called Slate, which helps schools track students progress and growth across all learning experiences both within and outside of school.

Personalized Learning Plan – Building 21 has designed a suite of student dashboards that serve the following primary functions:

• Dashboards show real-time student progress and growth.
• Students can set goals and reflect on progress.
• Advisors can help students plan their post-secondary pathway.

These dashboards make data transparent and comprehensible to students, families, and school staff.

Data Warehouse and Analytics – Building 21 helps schools unlock the power of their data. Schools often struggle with data spread across many systems that have no ability to talk to each other. They also struggle with being able to communicate this data with various stakeholders and to analyze this data for continuous improvement. Using what they learned from their Lab Schools, Building 21 works with schools and districts to create powerful dashboards to track, monitor, analyze, and communicate data relevant to their personalized and competency-based model. Example Dashboards

Ongoing data analysis, self-reflection, and feedback cycles help schools make intentional changes to improve their implementation of CBE.

From the outset, Building 21 recommends that schools determine how to measure success, defining metrics that will help inform future adjustments to the model. Schools then determine when and how often to share progress with stakeholders to solicit their feedback and brainstorm solutions to challenges.

In addition, Building 21 believes that all people, from leaders to teachers, should receive coaching and ongoing feedback as they individually and collectively learn to transition to competency-based education. Leaders and teachers are guided by their own sets of competencies to self-reflect and to give and receive feedback. 

Teachers can also choose to solicit feedback from students. For instance, students have an opportunity to share input on their experience at the end of each Studio. Teachers then use this feedback to improve their planning and facilitation so their instruction is truly personalized for all students.