What is Competency-Based Education?
Competency-Based Education allows for demonstration of competence beyond content knowledge and provides a more holistic approach to support diverse learners in “showing what they know.” Competency-Based Education follows three key criteria:
- Curricula are designed around specific competencies
- Advancement focuses on a demonstration of competency
- The time and processes students follow to demonstrate a competency can vary
What is Competency-Based Education at the Center for Certification & Competency-Based Education (C3Be)?
Courses and programs have clearly articulated competencies organized into learning objectives that describe what successful mastery of the competency looks like.
Assessments allow learners to demonstrate mastery of learning objectives in authentic contexts, with rubrics that specify clear criteria for evidence of mastery (or progress toward mastery) aligned to the learning objectives.
Learners have flexibility in their program pacing, access to curriculum materials, and assessment opportunities than a traditional semester-based course schedule.
Since competency-based education cares most about what students can do, as opposed to seat-time/enrollment in a course with a particular title, efforts should be made to identify progress toward competence among a learner’s lived experiences (e.g., work experience, military service, industry-recognized certifications).
For learners to develop, practice, and demonstrate authentic and meaningful competence in their field of study, it is important for the work of learning to take place in authentic environments, such as field placements, clinicals, or internships, or, especially in the case of undergraduate education where such opportunities might be as commonly available, simulations of authentic environments.
Competency-Based Education supports equity in educational outcomes
Competency-Based Education supports equity in educational outcomes by:
- recognizing demonstration of learning (prior and/or current)
- reducing the impact of environmental issues that impact seat time or attendance (for example, childcare or unanticipated medical needs)
- allowing for demonstration of competence beyond content knowledge
- providing a more wholistic approach to support diverse learners in “showing what they know”
- neutralizing, in some instances, economic issues caused by interruptions in the timing of program completion
- allowing for a shift in traditional institutional practices around how credits are accumulated and transferred.