University
of wisconsin system
Competency-Based
Education: What It Is, How It’s Different, and Why It Matters to You
January 24, 2014 -
Everyone is talking about competency-based education, and
for good reason. New competency-based programs such as the UW Flexible Option have the potential to revolutionize higher education by
personalizing student learning and making it possible for millions of adults to
at last earn a college degree while balancing work and family.
But what is competency-based
education, and how is it different from the traditional model? Most
importantly, what does it mean to you?
Competency-based education
explained
In today’s traditional higher
education model, students must accumulate a set number of credit hours—usually
120 to earn a bachelor’s degree. Students earn the same number of credits
regardless of the grade they receive from their instructors, provided the grade
is passing.
Competency-based education turns the
traditional model on its head. Instead of awarding credits based on how much
time students spend learning, this model awards credits based on whether
students can prove they have mastered competencies—the skills,
abilities, and knowledge required in an area of study.
To put it simply: In competency-based
education, it’s not about time—it’s about what you know and are able to do.
What are the benefits of
competency-based education?
By focusing on what you know
rather than how much time you spend learning, competency-based education puts
you in charge of your education as never before. No longer are you confined to
a rigid set of courses and semester schedules. Instead of working at an
instructor’s pace, studying material you may already know, competency-based
education makes
Read how UW Flex student Dan Fitch
earned 33 credits in three months, saving more than $7,500 and nine months
time.
it possible for you to work at your pace, studying
only the things you need to learn.
The idea is especially appealing for
the millions of American adults with busy schedules who already have
significant knowledge or even some college credits, but no degree. Many of
these adults may need a degree to become eligible for promotions or raises, but
due to work and family commitments, they simply don’t have time for a
traditional education. These people need a more flexible option that allows
them to earn a college degree on their own terms.possible for you to work at your
pace, studying only the things you need to learn.
For returning adult learners, the
competency-based Flexible Option aims to be:
- Flexible. No classes, no commutes. No set semesters or
study times. The Flexible Option lets you start when you want, the first
of any month, and work toward your degree online, on your own time, when
and where your schedule allows.
- Personalized. The Flexible Option recognizes and rewards
prior learning by giving you the opportunity to pass assessments using
knowledge you already have. You study only the material you need to master
and never spend time or money revisiting things you already know. In
addition, an Academic Success Coach will work with you to customize your
learning plan based on your knowledge and goals.
- Self-paced. Take assessments whenever you are ready.
Practice first to make sure. As soon as you prove mastery, you receive
credit and move on, without having to wait for the next lesson or
semester. Move quickly through material you know or take more time if you
need it.
- Supportive. Receive personalized mentoring and advising
from an Academic Success Coach who will help you prepare for assessments
and point you to learning resources you need to succeed, such as
textbooks, web pages, and even free online resources offered by other universities.
- Skills-based. You make progress by passing assessments that
show you have mastered the skills essential to your degree—not by
accumulating credit hours, either in the classroom or online.
- Respected. The Flexible Option builds on the UW System’s
reputation for quality and innovation. By measuring and assessing your
mastery of competencies, the Flexible Option provides proof to employers
that you have the skills and knowledge your field requires.
- Affordable. Instead of paying by course or by credit, the
Flexible Option lets you pay a flat rate for a subscription period of your
choice. If you are highly motivated and have
significant experience related to your degree, you may be able to accelerate your progress
and shorten your time to graduation, saving time and money.
Is competency-based education
right for you?
Although competency-based education
offers returning adult learners a real opportunity to earn a college degree
while balancing commitments to work and family, this innovative model is not
for everyone. There are no set classes, and the pace of your learning is
entirely up to you. But if you are the right kind of student—experienced,
self-directed, and motivated to succeed—then competency-based programs such as
the Flexible Option may be just what you’ve been waiting for.
Explore competency-based degree
and certificate programs from the University of Wisconsin
Find your future in flexible,
self-paced programs in nursing, information systems, diagnostic imaging,
business and technical communications, sales, global skills, and more. Visit
our Flexible Option programs page now.
If you have questions about the
competency-based UW Flexible Option, or about any of the UW degree and
certificate programs available in this new format, call 1-877-895-3276 or email
flex@uwex.edu to speak with a Student Outreach Specialist today.
University of Northern Arizona
NAU jumps the field with competency-based Personalized
Learning
May 28, 2013 8 Comments
With the launch of Personalized
Learning, what students already know will count for something, and what they
learn on the way to a college degree will come at a lower cost in time and
money.
Northern Arizona University
announced that its pioneering online program is now accepting students,
after receiving approval from the Higher Learning Commission of the North
Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
The path opened to degrees in
computer information technology, liberal arts and small business administration
includes a flat fee of $2,500 for each six months of unlimited credits and
self-paced learning. There are no semesters in the open-entry program.
Students can achieve their degree
goals quicker by testing out of modules in a course, demonstrating knowledge
they may have gained in previous college work or on the job. The approach puts
NAU, as a major public university, at the forefront of the emerging
competency-based movement.
“Personalized Learning marks a
watershed moment in higher education,” said NAU President John Haeger.
“We are opening an entirely new level of access to a respected university
education.”
The program blends elements of
quickly evolving higher education that have found early success—high-tech
learning analytics, a focus on outcomes, advanced online interactions—while
emphasizing critical thinking, providing the same foundation in quality that underlies
all of NAU’s degrees.
“Personalized Learning takes the
learning objectives of traditional college coursework and reorganizes them to
be more engaging and applicable to today’s workplace,” said Fred Hurst,
senior vice president of NAU Extended Campuses, which created and operates
Personalized Learning. “This program is about creating a skilled and inspired
adult workforce with the necessary critical thinking skills that meet the
demands of employers.”
Students may sign up at any time
after taking a self-assessment to determine if Personalized Learning is a good
fit for them. They may take any number of courses, in any order, at their own
pace. Along the way, faculty actively advise and mentor, using information
gained from student tests and other inputs to offer customized strategies for
success.
NAU created the program with funds
from a $1 million grant received in 2012 from EDUCAUSE and the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation.
The Texas Affordable Baccalaureate Program
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Abstract
Updated October 2013
The Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board (THECB), South Texas College, Texas A&M
University–Commerce, and the College for All Texans Foundation are launching
this new Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS) degree program in fall 2013. The
program uses a competency-based, year-round model with flat-rate tuition such
that students can work through as many courses within a seven-week period as
their schedules allow. Students advance based on showing competency in the
subject area rather than hours in class. Full-time faculty and industry
experts develop courses; individual coaches support students in
lower-division online courses; and faculty offer upper-division courses online
and face-to-face.
The two-page grantee profiles from
Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) provide factual information about
the secondary school and postsecondary degree program designs awarded grants
under NGLC's third wave of funding, which focused on two areas,
"Breakthrough Models for College Readiness" and "Breakthrough
Models for College Completion." Each profile describes what makes each
model "breakthrough" and offers important information about the
instructional and financial models, student demographics, hardware and software
choices, and contact info. These profiles serve to illustrate the innovations
of these new blended and online models, with practical details of interest to
those starting a new school or degree program.
NGLC accelerates educational
innovation through applied technology to dramatically improve college readiness
and completion in the United States. To learn more about NGLC and the grantees
it supports, visit nextgenlearning.org.
Kentucky Community and Technical College System
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Abstract
Updated October 2013
The Kentucky Community and Technical
College System is transforming an existing online program by using linear,
competency-based course modules to increase student success, degree completion,
and affordability. Students move swiftly and sequentially from one course
module to the next without breaks between semesters in the Direct2Degree
program. They move forward at their own pace once they master the
content of a module. The revamped tuition model will reward progress and early
completion.
The two-page grantee profiles from
Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) provide factual information about
the secondary school and postsecondary degree program designs awarded grants
under NGLC's third wave of funding, which focused on two areas,
"Breakthrough Models for College Readiness" and "Breakthrough
Models for College Completion." Each profile describes what makes each
model "breakthrough" and offers important information about the
instructional and financial models, student demographics, hardware and software
choices, and contact info. These profiles serve to illustrate the innovations
of these new blended and online models, with practical details of interest to
those starting a new school or degree program.
NGLC accelerates educational
innovation through applied technology to dramatically improve college readiness
and completion in the United States. To learn more about NGLC and the grantees
it supports, visit nextgenlearning.org
College for America
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Abstract
Updated October 2013
Focused on “unconfident
learners”—those who are familiar with educational failures, unsure of their
abilities, or balancing the demands of work and family—the College for America
program of Southern New Hampshire University is a self-paced online associate’s
degree program with no courses, no credit hours, no traditional faculty, and
no grades, offered at a low student cost. The program encourages
mentors in the workplace or the local community, uses a set of key
competencies defined, in part, by employers, and connects each student to a
coach who helps chart their path through the competencies.
The two-page grantee profiles from
Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) provide factual information about
the secondary school and postsecondary degree program designs awarded grants
under NGLC's third wave of funding, which focused on two areas,
"Breakthrough Models for College Readiness" and "Breakthrough
Models for College Completion." Each profile describes what makes each
model "breakthrough" and offers important information about the
instructional and financial models, student demographics, hardware and software
choices, and contact info. These profiles serve to illustrate the innovations
of these new blended and online models, with practical details of interest to
those starting a new school or degree program.
NGLC accelerates educational
innovation through applied technology to dramatically improve college readiness
and completion in the United States. To learn more about NGLC and the grantees
it supports, visit nextgenlearning.org.
Nov2014
By Senior Analyst, Brian Fleming
Last week, Eduventures presented at the 20th Annual Online
Learning Consortium (OLC) International Conference in Orlando, FL. The
event confirmed what our latest national survey of adult learners clearly
shows: competency-based education (CBE) is in demand. More than a third of
adult learners in our most recent survey say they want components of CBE in a
degree program.
This ‘Need-to-Know’ blog post series features noteworthy stories that speak
of need-to-know developments within higher education and K-12 that have the
potential to influence, challenge and/or transform traditional education as we
know it.
1) Skill
Development for Grad and Post-Doc Students including Entrepreneurship
A group of universities in Ontario, Canada released a platform earlier this
month, mygradskills.ca . The Moodle-based platform features online modules to support
professional skill development for graduate and post-doctoral students. The tag
line for the program is “Find your Future“. Students can choose between
20 mini-courses, in five topic areas. And though you wouldn’t normally
associate post-doc students with entrepreneurship, that is one of the categories.
According to
program founders, the aim of mygradskills is to give graduate students the
opportunity to develop the skills they’ll need to succeed “both in their
graduate programs and beyond” (Samson, 2014). One of the goals of the program
is to expose students to career options available, over and above research
opportunities. Apparently it’s needed as one of the founders of the platform
shared in an interview, “I can’t tell you how many graduate students have
told me that they were afraid to tell their faculty advisers that they didn’t
want to go on in academia.”
Screen shot from mygradskills.ca “Courses”
page. Currently there are 20 self-paced courses available to enrolled students.
The courses
are free to graduate and post-doctoral students from Ontario Universities, and
there are plans to extend the program to other Canadian Universities (the Ontario Ministry of Training funded the program).
Insight: This type of initiative has great potential for all students, including
undergraduates. We read statistics of many students with undergraduate degrees
either unemployed or under employed soon after graduation, yet at the same time
we read of employers claiming a skills gap. This type of program could address
some of the shortfalls. If available to undergraduate students in their senior
year—it could get students moving towards a career or post-grad study pathway.
I see it augmenting the career center services.
2) LMS for
Competency Based Education
Readers may not be too interested in reading about Learning Management System
news; often LMSs are considered a necessary evil to faculty and teachers of
education institutions. However, news last week shared by Phil Hill over at
e-literate is worthy of attention—the launch of a LMS platform geared to
competency based education (CBE) programs. The new LMS launched by Helix has a
different approach than traditional LMS providers. It’s not catering to an
institution, but to a method of teaching and learning—CBE. Interesting.
Insight: There is, and continues to be an emphasis and support ($$$) for creation
of CBE programs by the Department of Education (Fain,
2014). This new LMS approach by Helix is
another indicator. I predict that we’ll be hearing a lot more about CBE in the
next few months with more institutions offering CBE options for students. Why
it’s significant, is because CBE is a radical departure from traditional
education; it does not rely upon the credit-hour or ‘seat time’ as its often
referred to, but upon mastery of units of instruction.
Competency Based Education (CBE) is an
approach that allows students to advance based on their ability to master a
skill or competency at their own pace. Credit is granted when the skill is
mastered regardless of learning time. (image: Capella University)
Several
institutions are already basing their model on CBE, College for America, an
offshoot of Southern New Hampshire University and Capella University for
instance. Purdue University is planning on offering a competency-based
degree in the near future. Other universities
that incorporate CBE principles—Western
Governors University and
Kentucky Community and Technical College System for its 2-year degree program.
3) College
Rankings News
US News released its 30th edition of Best
College Rankings earlier this September. It’s
given fodder for many articles and blog posts. The rankings are clearly aimed
at parents and students, “U.S. News provides nearly 50 different types of
numerical rankings and lists to help students narrow their college search“,
yet the rankings are based solely upon a “peer assessment survey”, where the
peers are deans and senior faculty at peer institutions. I give much value to
faculty and deans opinions, however the fact that it is the only metric
for such surveys, and that the rankings are given so much weight by parents and
students is disconcerting.
Insight: There is a college that is the right fit for every student that wants to
go to either a two or four-year institution. Yet there is an emphasis and
pressure for students to get into one of the ‘best’ colleges—often unrealistic,
wasting students energy, time and (parents) money. The focus should be on
finding the right college for him or her which would yield far better
educational results in the long run. The ‘best’ college rankings isn’t helping
students.
Participatory Learning and Assessment in
Competency-Based Online Learning
Monday
Jan 26th, 2015
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Eastern Time
Join Malcolm Brown, EDUCAUSE
Learning Initiative director, and Veronica Diaz, ELI associate director, as
they moderate this webinar with Daniel Hickey.
This webinar will show how
participatory social engagement around course knowledge can be fostered within
competency-based online learning contexts. Five educational design principles
will be presented for organizing, motivating, and assessing online learning.
Together, these principles support the interactive learning needed to prepare
learners for success in networked knowledge settings, while providing the
flexibility, self-pacing, and accountability associated with traditional
competency-based approaches. These principles will be presented alongside
features used to implement them in popular learning management systems.
Campus Technology
Teaching and Learning |
Feature
Inside
Competency-Based Degrees
Under pressure to deliver
more bang for the buck, traditional schools are launching competency-based
degree programs that reward life experiences and give students demonstrable
skills.
- By John K. Waters
- 12/18/13
The idea couldn't be
simpler: Instead of awarding college degrees based on the accumulation of
credit hours — essentially "seat time" in the classroom — make the
foundation of a degree a set of demonstrated competencies, regardless of where
or when those competencies were acquired. In recent years, the biggest
proponents of competency-based learning, as it is commonly known, have been
for-profit online colleges, such as Capella
University, and a handful of nonprofit institutions,
such as Western Governors University, which was founded on the concept. But with concerns
growing about what students actually learn at college — and the huge debts they
rack up in the process — an increasing number of traditional universities are
developing competency-based degree programs of their own.
If these programs succeed,
the number of converts could grow quickly, given the support the model has
attracted. The U.S. Department of Education has been making supportive
statements for several years. In 2011, the agency issued a letter
encouraging colleges to seek federal approval for degree programs that don't
rely on the credit hour to measure student learning. Education Secretary Arne
Duncan has even stated that such programs, which are now the exception, should
become the norm.
Florida is an example of
the growing enthusiasm for competency-based learning at the state level.
Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford, a driving force behind the state's
recent decision to launch UF Online,
the country's first stand-alone, online-only public university program for
baccalaureate degrees, thinks its time has finally come.
"There's a real
recognition that student-centered learning is the future of education,"
Weatherford said. "I believe that competency-based degrees are something
we're going to see a lot more of in the future. Programs that allow students to
learn at their own pace, as opposed to ones that are dictated by the calendar
year, will appeal to a lot of people."
But perhaps the best
evidence of this momentum comes from the very organization that invented the
credit hour, the Carnegie Foundation. Originally called the Carnegie Unit, the credit hour
was established in 1906 as a way of measuring faculty workload. It was never
intended "to measure, inform or improve the quality of teaching or
learning," according to the foundation. Nevertheless, the credit hour
quickly became the de facto standard for measuring student progress in both
secondary and higher education. In December 2012, the Carnegie Foundation declared that "technology has revealed the potential of
personalized learning," and that "it is time to consider how a
revised unit, based on competency rather than time, could improve teaching and
learning in high schools, colleges and universities."
The foundation is
currently conducting an analysis of the value of the Carnegie Unit in
"today's educational context" and examining "the potential
consequences of creating a new unit of learning."
Assessment Challenges
Make no mistake, the task of converting a traditional degree program into a
competency-based one is daunting, with impacts that are likely to reverberate
throughout the institution. The biggest challenge is obvious: revising how
student work is assessed. In a competency-based learning program, credit is
given when ability is demonstrated; credit hours become irrelevant and grades
difficult to apply. At some programs, students can even earn credits toward
graduation by demonstrating competency earned through life and work experience.
Harvard Business Review
The Real Revolution in Online Education
Isn’t MOOCs
October 17, 2014
Data is
confirming what we already know: recruiting is an imprecise activity, and
degrees don’t communicate much about a candidate’s potential and fit. Employers
need to know what a student knows and can do.
Something
is clearly wrong when only 11% of
business leaders — compared to 96% of chief academic
officers — believe that graduates have the requisite skills for the workforce.
It’s therefore unlikely that business leaders are following closely what’s
going on in higher education. Even the latest hoopla around massive open online
courses (MOOCs) amounts to more of the same: academics designing courses that
correspond with their own interests rather than the needs of the workforce, but
now doing it online.
But
there is a new wave of online competency-based learning providers that has
absolutely nothing to do with offering free, massive, or open courses. In fact,
they’re not even building courses per se, but creating a whole new architecture
of learning that has serious implications for businesses and organizations
around the world.
It’s
called online competency-based education, and it’s going to revolutionize the
workforce.
Say a
newly minted graduate with a degree in history realizes that in order to attain
her dream job at Facebook, she needs some experience with social media
marketing. Going back to school is not a desirable option, and many schools
don’t even offer relevant courses in social media. Where is the affordable,
accessible, targeted, and high-quality program that she needs to skill-up?
Online
competency-based education is the key to filling in the skills gaps in the
workforce. Broadly speaking, competency-based education identifies explicit
learning outcomes when it comes to knowledge and the application of that
knowledge. They include measurable learning objectives that empower students:
this person can apply financial principles to solve business problems; this
person can write memos by evaluating seemingly unrelated pieces of information;
or this person can create and explain big data results using data mining skills
and advanced modeling techniques.
Competencies
themselves are nothing new. There are schools that have been delivering
competency-based education offline for decades, but without a technological
enabler, offline programs haven’t been able to take full advantage of what
competencies have to offer.
A small
but growing number of educational institutions such as College
for America (CfA), Brandman, Capella, University
of Wisconsin, Northern Arizona, and Western Governors are
implementing online competency-based programs. Although many are still in
nascent stages today, it is becoming clear that online competencies have the
potential to create high-quality learning pathways that are affordable,
scalable, and tailored to a wide variety of industries. It is likely they will
only gain traction and proliferate over time.
But
this isn’t vocational or career technical training nor is it the University of
Phoenix. Nor is this merely about STEM-related knowledge. In fact, many of
these competency-based programs have majors or a substantive core devoted to
the liberal arts. And they go beyond bubble tests and machine-graded exercises.
Final projects often include complex written assignments and oral presentations
that demand feedback from instructors.
The key
distinction is the modularization of learning. Nowhere else but in an
online competency-based curriculum will you find this novel and flexible
architecture. By breaking free of the constraints of the “course” as the
educational unit, online competency-based providers can easily and
cost-effectively stack together modules for various and emergent disciplines.
Here’s
why business leaders should care: the resulting stackable credential reveals
identifiable skillsets and dispositions that mean something to an
employer. As opposed to the black box of the diploma, competencies lead to a
more transparent system that highlights student-learning outcomes.
College
transcripts reveal very little about what a student knows and can do. An
employer never fully knows what it means if a student got a B+ in Social
Anthropology or a C- in Geology. Most colleges measure learning in credit
hours, meaning that they’re very good at telling you how long a student sat in
a particular class — not what the student actually learned.
Competency-based
learning flips this on its head and centers on mastery of a subject regardless
of the time it takes to get there. A student cannot move on until demonstrating
fluency in each competency. As a result, an employer can rest assured that when
a student can use mathematical formulas to make financial decisions; the
student has mastered that competency. Learning is fixed, and time is variable.
What’s
more, many of these education providers are consulting with industry councils
to understand better what employers are seeking. Businesses and organizations
of all sizes can help build series of brief modules to skill up their existing
workforce. The bundle of modules doesn’t even necessarily need to culminate in
a credential or a degree because the company itself validates the learning
process. Major companies like The Gap, Partners Healthcare, McDonald’s, FedEx,
ConAgra Foods, Delta Dental, Kawasaki, Oakley, American Hyundai, and Blizzard
are just a few of the growing number of companies diving into competencies by
partnering with institutions such as Brandman, CfA, and Patten. By having built
that specific learning pathway in collaboration with the education provider,
the employer knows that the pipeline of students will most certainly have the
requisite skills for the work ahead.
For
working adults who are looking to skill-up, the advantages are obvious. These
programs are already priced comparable to, or lower than, community colleges,
and most offer simple subscription models so students can pay a flat rate and
complete as many competencies as they wish in a set time period. Instead of
having to sit for 16 weeks in a single course, a student could potentially
accelerate through a year’s worth of learning in that same time. In fact, a student who
was working full-time and enrolled at College for America earned an entire
associate’s degree in less than 100 days. That means fewer opportunity costs
and dramatic cost savings. For some, that entire degree can be covered by an
employer’s tuition reimbursement program—a degree for less than $5,000. It is
vital to underscore, however, that competency-based education is about mastery
foremost—not speed. These pathways importantly assess and certify what a
student knows and can do.
Over
time, employers will be able to observe firsthand and validate whether the
quality of work or outputs of their employees are markedly different with these
new programs in place. Online competency-based education has the potential to
provide learning experiences that drive down costs, accelerate degree completion,
and produce a variety of convenient, customizable, and targeted programs for
the emergent needs of our labor market.
A new
world of learning lies ahead. Time to pay attention.
eLearners.com
What is Competency-Based Learning?
ShareThis
Competency-based
learning enables students to earn a college degree based on their mastery of a
subject rather than a traditional course of study with classroom time and
credit hours accrued. Competency-based programs vary from institution to
institution, so while some programs might determine a student’s competencies by
traditional standards, others may determine subject mastery by assessment
tests.
Traditionally,
a course of collegiate study may consist of a required number of credits that
are earned per class, per semester. But with competency-based learning, a group
of experts in a particular industry may determine what skills you need in order
to be considered capable in a certain field. Those skills might then define the
competencies that are required for you to pursue your degree. A
competency-based education program is a vast departure from traditional
learning because:
·
Your knowledge of a topic may be assessed by test to prove
mastery, whether or not you have completed an accredited course on that topic.
This method allows you to use knowledge gained through real-world experience or
prior education to quickly prove mastery of a topic and move forward with your
education.
·
You may determine how much time to allot for learning each
topic, spending more time to learn challenging material and less time on
concepts you find easily graspable.
·
Flat-rate tuition may be available for a competency-based
education program so you can progress at your own pace instead of according to
a pre-determined course schedule and curriculum. This may mean that if you’re a
fast-learning student it ultimately costs less money to earn a degree than the
traditional semester-based, pay-per-class tuition.
Competency-based
learning vs. conventional educational models
There
are several reasons why you may or may not choose a competency-based learning
program. If your busy schedule or family obligations have been a roadblock
preventing you from enrolling in a higher education program, a competency-based
learning program may provide the flexibility you need. If you’re hoping to
enhance your career by earning a college degree, but the demands of work make
finding time for college difficult, the convenience of competency-based
learning may be especially appealing.
Below
are some pros and cons to note when considering whether competency-based
learning could be a good option.
Pros
·
Customized pace: Even
with a full-time job or family responsibilities, you may work as quickly or as
slowly as you like within the time constraints of the program you choose.
·
Self-discipline: You
are essentially in charge of when education takes place and how quickly you
encounter, learn, and are assessed on material.
·
Possibly accelerated program: Rather
than credit hours based on a course, some programs may be completed as quickly
as the student demonstrates competency in the subjects.
·
Learning workplace skills: According
to the competency-based learning students who were interviewed by the Council
for Adult and Experiential Learning, “the competencies [students] have had to
demonstrate through the program’s assessments have been directly applicable to
their day-to-day work lives.”i
·
Flat-rate tuition: Some
institutions, such as Western Governors University, offer
flat-rate tuition for a six-month period and a student may learn as much as
desired in that time frame.ii
Cons
·
Time management: The
amount of time needed to learn each topic is unique to each student. Therefore,
accomplishment is based on the time and effort you put in, so self-discipline
and time management are required.
·
Less social interaction:
Because competency-based learning students are not sitting in a classroom in
the presence of classmates and a professor, you may feel the lack of a physical
learning atmosphere. However, many programs will match students to academic
mentors, who will make helpful resources available—such as message boards and
online learning communities.
Is
competency-based learning right for you?
Competency-based
learning might be a good method of education for you if you are an independent
self-starter with the discipline to begin and complete tasks by your own
motivation. Structure may be much different from that of the type of education
you’ve known since childhood. Those students who are determined to achieve
their goals and are interested in a non-traditional route of learning should
look into a competency-based learning program.
[i]americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CAEL-student-report-corrected.pdf
[ii]wgu.edu/why_WGU/competency_based_approach
Competency-Based
Education: An (Updated) Primer for Today’s Online Market
I’m not an expert in the academic theory and
background of outcomes and competencies, so in this post I’ll summarize the key
points from various articles as they relate to the current market for online
programs. Links are included for those wanting to read in more depth.
What is Competency-Based
Education?
Competency-based
education was introduced in America towards the end of the 1960s in reaction to
concerns that students are not taught the skills they require in life after
school.
Competency-based education (CBE) is based on
the broader concept of Outcomes-based education (OBE), one that is familiar to
many postsecondary institutions and one that forms the basis of many current
instructional design methods. OBE works backwards within a course, starting
with the desired outcomes (often defined through a learning objectives
taxonomy) and relevant assessments, and then moving to the learning experiences
that should lead students to the outcomes. Typically there is a desire to
include flexible pathways for the student to achieve the outcomes.
OBE can be implemented in various modalities,
including face-to-face, online and hybrid models.
Competency-based education (CBE) is a narrower
concept, a subset or instance of OBE, where the outcomes are more closely tied
to job skills or employment needs, and the methods are typically self-paced.
Again based on the
Malan article, the six critical components of CBE are as follows:
§ Explicit
learning outcomes with respect to the required skills and concomitant
proficiency (standards for assessment)
§ A flexible
time frame to master these skills
§ A
variety of instructional activities to facilitate learning
§ Criterion-referenced
testing of the required outcomes
§ Certification
based on demonstrated learning outcomes
§ Adaptable
programs to ensure optimum learner guidance
The Council for Adult and Experiential
Learning put out
a paper last summer that examines the current state of CBE. In this paper the
author, Rebecca Klein-Collins, shows that there is a spectrum of implementation
of competency models.
One subset of
institutions uses competency frameworks in the context of a course-based
system. By course-based system, we mean that students take the same kinds of
courses that have always been offered by colleges and universities:
instructor-led and credit-hour based.
These may be offered on
campus or off, in the classroom or online, accelerated or normally paced. These
institutions define competencies that are expected of graduates, and students
demonstrate these competencies by successfully completing courses that relate
to the required competencies. In some cases, institutions embed competency
assessments into each course. In most of the examples presented in this paper,
the institution also offers the option of awarding credit for prior learning,
and usually [prior learning assessments] is course-based as well.
There seems to be a fairly big jump, however,
once the program moves into a self-paced model. For these self-paced CBE
initiatives, which are the subject of recent growth in adoption, the current
implementations of CBE tend to be:
§ Fully-online;
§ Self-paced;
§ Flexible
to allow for retaking of assessments until competency demonstrated; and
§ Targeted
at college completion for working adults.
What is driving the
current growth and interest in competency-based models?
In a nutshell, the current emphasis and growth
in CBE is driven by the desire to provide lower-cost education options through
flexible programs targeted at working adults.
To promote innovation and
competition in the higher education marketplace, the President’s plan will
publish better information on how colleges are performing, help demonstrate
that new approaches can improve learning and reduce costs, and offer colleges
regulatory flexibility to innovate. And the President is challenging colleges
and other higher education leaders to adopt one or more of these promising
practices that we know offer breakthroughs on cost, quality, or both – or
create something better themselves:
§ Award
Credits Based on Learning, not Seat Time.
Western Governors University is a competency-based online university serving
more than 40,000 students with relatively low costs— about $6,000 per year for
most degrees with an average time to a bachelor’s degree of only 30 months. A
number of other institutions have also established competency-based programs,
including Southern New Hampshire University and the University of Wisconsin
system. [snip]
§ Reduce
Regulatory Barriers: The Department will use its authority to
issue regulatory waivers for “experimental sites” that promote high-quality,
low-cost innovations in higher education, such as making it possible for
students to get financial aid based on how much they learn, rather than the
amount of time they spend in class. Pilot opportunities could include enabling
colleges to offer Pell grants to high school students taking college courses,
allowing federal financial aid to be used to pay test fees when students seek
academic credit for prior learning, and combining traditional and
competency-based courses into a single program of study. The Department will
also support efforts to remove state regulatory barriers to distance education.
Why has it taken so long
for the model to expand beyond WGU?
Despite the history of CBE since the 1960′s,
it has only been since the early 2000′s that CBE has started to take hold in US
postsecondary eduction, with a rapid growth occurring in the past year. From my
earlier post:
Consider that just
[three] years ago Western Governors University stood almost alone as the
competency-based model for higher education, but today we can add Southern New
Hampshire University, the University of Wisconsin System, Northern Arizona
University, StraighterLine and Excelsior College.
Why has it taken so long? Although there is a
newfound enthusiasm for CBE from the Obama administration, there have been
three primary barriers to adoption of competency-based programs: conflicting
policy, emerging faculty resistance, and implementation complexity.
1) Conflicting Policy
In Paul Fain’s article at
Inside Higher Ed, he described some of the policy-related challenges pertaining
to CBE.
Competency-based higher
education’s time may have arrived, but no college has gone all-in with a degree
program that qualifies for federal aid and is based on competency rather than
time in class.
Colleges blame regulatory
barriers for the hold-up. The U.S. Education Department and accreditors point
fingers at each other for allegedly stymieing progress. But they also say the
door is open for colleges to walk through, and note that traditional academics
are often skeptical about competency-based degrees.
In 2005 Congress passed a law
intended to help Western Governors University (WGU) and other CBE models,
defining programs that qualify for federal financial aid to include:
an instructional program
that, in lieu of credit hours or clock hours as the measure of student
learning, utilizes direct assessment of student learning, or recognizes the
direct assessment of student learning by others, if such assessment is
consistent with the accreditation of the institution or program utilizing the
results of the assessment.
Despite this law, WGU did not
even use the law due to policy complexity, opting instead to map its
competencies to seat time equivalents.
In fact, the first program to use this “direct
assessment” clause to fully distinguish itself from the credit hour standard
was Southern New Hampshire University’s College for America program in March of
2013. As described
in the Chronicle:
Last month the U.S.
Education Department sent a message to colleges: Financial aid may be awarded
based on students’ mastery of “competencies” rather than their accumulation of
credits. That has major ramifications for institutions hoping to create new
education models that don’t revolve around the amount of time that students
spend in class.
Now one of those models
has cleared a major hurdle. The Education Department has approved the
eligibility of Southern New Hampshire University to receive federal financial
aid for students enrolled in a new, self-paced online program called College
for America, the private, nonprofit university has announced.
Southern New Hampshire
bills its College for America program as “the first degree program to
completely decouple from the credit hour.”
2) Emerging Faculty and
Institutional Resistance
Not everyone is enamored of the potential of
competency-based education, and there is an emerging resistance from faculty
and traditional institutional groups. The American Association of Colleges and
Universities published an article titled “Experience Matters: Why
Competency-Based Education Will Not Replace Seat Time” which argued against
applying competency models to liberal arts:
Perhaps such an approach
makes sense for those vocational fields in which knowing the material is the
only important outcome, where the skills are easily identified, and where the
primary goal is certification. But in other fields—the liberal arts and
sciences, but also many of the professions—this approach simply does not work.
Instead, for most students, the experience of being in a physical classroom on
a campus with other students and faculty remains vital to what it means to get
a college education.
In addition, I am hearing more and more
discomfort from faculty members, especially as there are new calls to broadly
expand competency-based programs beyond the working adult population. I have yet
to see much formal resistance from faculty groups, however, and the bigger
challenge is cultural barriers within the institutions or systems where CBE
programs have been announced.
3) Implementation
Complexity
I would add that the integration of self-paced
programs not tied to credit hours into existing higher education models
presents an enormous challenge. Colleges and universities have built up large
bureaucracies – expensive administrative systems, complex business processes,
large departments – to address financial aid and accreditation compliance, all
based on fixed academic terms and credit hours. Registration systems, and even
state funding models, are tied to the fixed semester, quarter or academic year
– largely defined by numbers of credit hours.
It is not an easy task to allow transfer
credits coming from a self-paced program, especially if a student is taking
both CBE courses and credit-hour courses at the same time. The systems and
processes often cannot handle this dichotomy.
I suspect this is one of the primary reasons
the CBE programs that have gained traction to date tend to be separated in time
from the standard credit-hour program. CBE students either take their courses,
reach a certain point, and transfer into a standard program; or they enter a
CBE program after they have completed a previous credit-hour based program. In
other words, the transfer between the competency world and credit-hour world
happen along academic milestones. Some of the new initiatives, however, such as
the University of Wisconsin initiative are aiming at more of a mix-and-match
flexible degree program.
The result is that the implementation of a
competency-based initiative can be like a chess match. Groups need to be aware
of multiple threats coming from different angles, while thinking 2 or 3 moves
at a time.
It will be interesting to watch the new
initiatives develop. However difficult their paths are, I think this is an
educational delivery model that will continue to grow.
Full disclosure: Western
Governors University has been a client of MindWires Consulting.
i
Related
The most attention at OLC was paid to how institutions can
meet this demand for CBE, with particular focus on the tools and technologies
needed to successfully adopt a CBE approach in online and blended education.
Our takeaway is three observations that stem from engaging institutions,
organizations, and technology vendors that are active in this space:
- Launching
a CBE program is not a lone endeavor. CBE is a fledgling movement built
on collaboration among peers and partners. Institutions, such as
University of Central
- Florida,
Central Washington University, Western Kentucky University, were all more
than willing to share best practices with potential adopters.
Organizations, such as OLC, EDUCAUSE, the Competency-Based Education
Network (C-BEN), and Quality Matters (QM), frequently came up as potential
partners for early adopters thinking about this practice. In addition, a
number of technology vendors drove productive conversations about their
frameworks for adoption, such as Pearson and Helix Education, which
showcased the impressive ways in which they have helped institutions think
constructively about this space.
- New
LMS technologies are needed. With CBE, existing tools rarely
work, especially existing Learning Management Systems (LMS). Most
traditional LMSs were not designed with the needs of non-traditional
learners or the unique platform specifications needed to support CBE in
mind. Helix Education (formerly Datamark), in particular, stole the show
this year with Helix LMS, one of only a handful of new platforms
available that can support CBE (LoudCloud and Desire2Learn are also active
in this space). Helix was built out of the platform used for Altius
Education and Tiffin University’s Ivy Bridge College and, therefore, designed
exclusively with the needs of non-traditional learners in mind. In our
view, Helix “gets” non-traditional higher education like few others,
likely because it was born within it.
- New
design frameworks should guide the CBE movement forward. Of particular
note was a session facilitated by Ron Legon, Executive Director of Quality
Matters (QM), who introduced new design standards for competency-based
direct assessment, currently being used, for instance, by Broward College.
QM’s longstanding commitment to quality assurance in online education and
its focused and actionable framework helps inform a still underexplored
connection between CBE and the ongoing trend to quantitatively improve
online course quality. We applaud QM for so quickly moving into this space
and would suggest anyone serious about CBE consider exploring QM’s new
framework.
In short, based on these insights, we recommend that any
institution looking to incorporate a CBE approach into their programs:
- Explore
CBE in partnerships with others. Listen, learn, and engage
institutions, organizations, and vendors that are further along in
building and supporting CBE programs.
- Explore
LMSs designed with the needs of non-traditional learners in mind.
- Pay
attention to quality measures in the design of CBE courses. Learning more
about QM’s most recent initiative is a great place to start.
Inside Higher
Education
A Disruption Grows Up?
October 1, 2012
By
Competency-based
education could be a game-changer for adult students, probably more so than MOOCs.
Yet despite the backing of powerful supporters, colleges have been reluctant to
go all-in because they are unsure whether accreditors and the federal
government will give the nod to degree programs that look nothing like the
traditional college model.
The logjam
may be breaking, however. Southern New Hampshire University is poised to launch
a $5,000 online, competency-based associate degree that would be the first to
blow up the credit hour -- the connection between college credit and the time
students spend learning. A regional accreditor has signed off on Southern New
Hampshire’s “direct assessment” method, and the university will soon apply for
federal approval.
Meanwhile,
about 20 institutions have joined Western Governors University with competency-based
offerings that are linked in some way to the credit hour, many of them new
programs, according to the Lumina Foundation. Another dozen colleges hope to
get there soon.
Adding to
the momentum might be a “Dear Colleague” letter the U.S. Department of
Education plans to distribute this week. Observers predict that the letter, a
form of regulatory guidance, would give accreditors and colleges some clarity
about the department’s stance on competency-based education, and would increase
confidence that those programs can be eligible for federal aid.
The
academy's nervousness about competency is understandable. Students learn at
their own pace under the model -- without guidance from a traditional faculty
member -- and try to prove what they know through assessments. If the tests
lack rigor and a link to real competencies, this approach starts looking like
cash for credits.
“We see a
lot of promise here. But we don’t want to rush into this, because you really
only get one chance.”
-- Kevin Corcoran, Lumina Foundation program director
And
competency-based education is controversial even when it’s backed by sound
measurements of college-level learning. Most online courses share plenty with
the traditional college classroom, most notably course material delivered by a
professor or instructor. For example, even the massive open online versions
(MOOCs) generally include video lectures. But competency-based education, by
definition, eliminates this part of the learning process, typically relying
instead on tutors to help students grasp concepts as they work through
self-paced course material, and only if they need help.
“The models upend so much about what we understand about how education is
delivered,” said Paul LeBlanc, Southern New Hampshire’s president.
So while
foundations and the Education Department want to see more competency-based programs, they are wary of a backlash.
“We see a
lot of promise here,” said Kevin Corcoran, a program director at Lumina. “But
we don’t want to rush into this, because you really only get one chance.”
Proceed
with Caution
Lumina and
the Gates Foundation last month held a meeting with about 35 institutions that
either do competency or want to try it. Part of the goal, Corcoran said, was to
have conversations about “how to get beyond seat time,” and for colleges to
share intelligence on their competency-based programs.
Northern
Arizona University, for example, is developing three competency-based bachelor's degree programs, with
Pearson as a partner. The university will work within the confines of the
credit hour, said Fred Hurst, Northern Arizona’s senior vice president for
extended campuses. University officials are headed to Washington this week to
get clarification on how their programs would be defined. The university is
still working details with its regional accreditor, the Higher Learning
Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, but plans
to launch soon.
“We hope
that we’ll be able to do that in January,” Hurst said. “It’s the right time, so
we’re moving forward.”
From a
federal perspective, the tension over competency-based education is about
protecting aid dollars. The feds want to make sure the money is flowing to
colleges that offer degrees of value, which are tied to solid learning
outcomes. And those goals apply to the partisan policy brawls over for-profit
colleges as well as scrutiny of competency-based offerings.
“They want
good actors to do something good with this,” said Amy Laitinen, deputy director
for higher education at the New America Foundation and a former Education
Department official.
As a result,
the Education Department is trying to seek a balance between encouraging
innovative approaches with regulations that preserve academic quality. That has
led to what many see as a glacial pace on competency-based education. And the
federal government often appears to have a split personality on related
policies: regulating the traditional approach to the credit hour with restrictive vigor while pushing innovation at meetings with higher ed reformers.
Corcoran
summed up the challenge this way: “How do you be more creative without opening
the spigot on financial aid for programs that aren’t serving students well?”
Direct
Assessment
Southern New
Hampshire is a private, nonprofit college with a rapidly growing online arm.
Its online enrollment of 17,000 is expected to hit 22,000 this year. The
university has used revenue from its online offerings to help build up a
once-drab traditional campus, located outside of Manchester.
The proposed
competency-based degree program from Southern New Hampshire would break new
ground, several experts said, by seeking to directly assess students’
competencies rather than mapping them to credit hours. And the university last
month secured approval for direct assessment from its regional accreditor, the
New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Institutions of
Higher Education.
Western
Governors University, also a nonprofit, has gotten by far the most attention in
the competency-based space. A federal law, passed in 2005, was designed to
clear the way for Western Governors to participate in federal aid programs
while directly assessing student learning. The university, however, did not pursue that authority, partially because of worries about whether
employers and accreditors would accept competency-based degrees. So Western
Governors, like all other institutions, connects student competencies to the
credit hour.
“The models
upend so much about what we understand about how education is delivered.” -- Paul
LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University
A number of
institutions are in discussion with the senior college commission of the
Western Association of Schools and Colleges over the development of
competency-based programs, said Ralph Wolff, the commission’s president. But
none have sought direct assessment.
With its
accreditor on board, Southern New Hampshire is now prepared to submit its
application for direct assessment to the Education Department, and will do so
as soon the Dear Colleague letter is out, if not before.
“We now
essentially have a green light to move forward,” LeBlanc said. “We’ve cleared
that first necessary hurdle on the way to direct assessment.”
As a back-up
plan, the university will map its competency-based programs to the credit hour.
'College
for America'
In January,
Southern New Hampshire plans to begin offering competency-based associate
degrees in general studies. The total tuition cost of the two-year degree will
be $5,000, LeBlanc said. Several other competency-based programs will follow,
including bachelor's degrees, he said. The program, dubbed Pathways during the
development phase, will be called College for America when it goes live.
The
university will assess 120 competencies for the associate degree. Lumina’s
Degree Qualifications Profile, which attempts to define what degree holders should know and be able to do, served
as the basis for defining those competencies, along with the university’s
general education goals. Other sources were used as well, like the U.S.
Department of Labor’s competency pyramids.
Competencies
are broken into 20 distinct “task families,” which are then divided into three
task levels. For example, the “using business tools” family includes tasks like
“can write a business memo,” “can use a spreadsheet to perform a variety of
calculations” and “can use logic, reasoning and analysis to address a business
problem.”
As they
progress, students will take assessments to measure their proficiency in
subject matter. One test the university said it might use is the Educational
Testing Service's Proficiency Profile. When students demonstrate mastery of the
competencies within a given task family, they will be deemed to have the
knowledge and skills necessary to pass a 100- or 200- level, three-credit
course, according to the university.
Academic
rigor is an important selling point, LeBlanc said. “We wanted to show people
that we didn’t make this up on the fly.”
The
university has inked partnerships with several large employers, which have
agreed to steer their workers to the future College for America. They include
ConAgra Foods and the City of Memphis. Those agreements will start small, with
5-10 employees, LeBlanc said, adding that “it’s been a real easy sell.”
Going first
is rarely easy in higher education. And there are obviously plenty of hurdles
to going after direct assessment, given that a law has been on the books for
seven years and no institution has yet to pursue it.
Asked why
Southern New Hampshire decided to try, LeBlanc said the university doesn’t
really have a choice. That’s because its model is built on being ahead of the
curve.
“Even as our
online business is exploding, you’ve got to think about the next disruption,”
he said. “I don’t want to be doing this on the defensive.”
Competency-Based
Education: No More Semesters?
October 07, 2014 8:03 AM ET
LA Johnson/NPR
LA Johnson/NPR
"I went to a
four-year university." "That job requires a one-year
certificate." "It's a two-semester course." "She's a
fifth-year senior." What do these expressions have in common? They use
time as the yardstick for higher education.
Essentially, this means
measuring not how much you've learned, but how long you've spent trying to
learn it.
The conventions of the
credit hour, the semester and the academic year were formalized in the early
1900s. Time forms the template for designing college programs, accrediting them
and — crucially — funding them using federal student aid.
But in 2013, for the first
time, the Department of Education took steps to loosen the rules.
The new idea: Allow
institutions to get student-aid funding by creating programs that directly
measure learning, not time. Students can move at their own pace. The school
certifies — measures — what they know and are able to do.
It's known as "direct
assessment" or "competency-based education."
In July of this year, the
Department of Education announced a new round of "experimental sites"
that will be allowed to try out such programs without losing financial-aid
eligibility.
"There are big
changes going on out in the field of education," says David Soo, a senior
policy adviser at the Department of Education. "And we want to encourage
them to happen."
According to Inside Higher Ed, more
than 350 institutions now offer or are seeking to create competency-based
degrees. So it's a safe bet that we'll be hearing more about this trend soon.
Here's why you might want to pay attention.
The Target Student Has A
"Full-Time Life"
The largest pool of
current and potential college students in the United States is not 18- to
22-year-olds. That demographic is actually shrinking.
Instead, there are tens of
millions of adults in their early 20s through late middle age who need to
complete their first degree, earn a second or simply update their skills.
Educators say that's exactly whom these competency-based programs will serve
best.
The "Flexible Option"
at the University of Wisconsin currently offers five competency-based degrees.
It's the first public institution to receive permission to offer this kind of
program.
"Our target is
students who have what we call a 'full-time life,' " says Aaron Brower,
who oversees the program. Average age: 37. "This is an opportunity to fit
education around their life rather than ask them to fit their life around a
standard academic calendar."
For Carla Lundeen of
LaCrosse, Wis., that change can't come soon enough. She's a 44-year-old working
mom and stepmom of four kids who's getting her bachelor's degree in nursing.
The new programs mean
getting out her laptop to study after dinner on weeknights, and taking exams or
writing papers on weekends. She doesn't have to carry a full- or half-time course
load but can spread the work out as needed. "For people who are working
right now," she says, "I think it's a great option because you can
tailor it to your life."
More Than Just Online
Online colleges have been
advertising self-paced programs for over a decade. Credit by exam, such as the
AP exam, and independent-study credits have been around even longer.
So what makes
competency-based education different?
For one thing, it can
allow students to receive college credit for knowledge they acquired elsewhere.
Since Flex students at Wisconsin are older, most have prior college and work
experience.
Lundeen, a licensed nurse,
is already working in the health care field as a quality manager at a
long-term-care support agency.
"A lot of what I
learned on the job I can use to complete those competencies," she says.
"I don't necessarily have to sit down and read in a textbook."
That means when she comes
across a written assignment on community health, say, she can use examples from
her own experience. "They don't ask you where or how you got the
information as long as you can prove it."
Assessments Are Crucial
"Proving it," of
course, is the rub.
In a traditional college
degree program, assessments and course requirements are typically decided by
individual professors or within a department. Which can lead to wide variations
in expectations, workload and grading.
Back in college, you may
have sweated your way through 12-hour physics problem sets while your roommate
crafted art installations out of dryer lint (that was my roommate, actually).
But if you stuck with it
at least eight semesters, both of you earned degrees that were, in many ways,
equivalent; a "bachelor's."
Freed of the credit-hour
constraint, competency-based programs need to be a lot more rigorous and
transparent about designing assessments. Otherwise, they risk turning into
diploma mills.
In fact, last month the
Education Department's Office of the Inspector General warned in an audit that
the department was not working hard enough to ensure that the new programs
included "regular and substantive" contact with professors and were
not merely "correspondence programs."
In response to the report,
the Education Department says it's taking steps to improve oversight.
Excelsior College in
upstate New York, founded in 1971, is one of the oldest distance-learning
institutions in the country. And since then it has been doing a version of
competency-based education for working adults, although it is technically
mapped to the semester system since, until recently, no other options existed.
"Both my personal and
the college's belief is that you cannot determine whether someone is competent
unless you can determine their ability to demonstrate whatever knowledge they
have in as real a situation as you can," says Excelsior President John
Ebersole.
He cites the school's
program in nursing as an example. Students complete the majority of their
studies online. Then they go into a real hospital setting, under the
supervision of a trained nurse educator.
There, over the course of
2 1/2 days, they care for real patients: reading charts, developing a care
plan, carrying out physicians' instructions, administering medications and
demonstrating bedside manner.
"When someone passes
that competency assessment, we know what their capabilities are and what they
can do," says Ebersole.
Learning That Translates
To The Real World
The Lumina Foundation has
been one of the most influential nonprofit groups pushing the idea of
competency-based education. Its president, Jamie Merisotis, says the idea has
implications far beyond students like Carla Lundeen.
"Our inability to
articulate what degrees mean and what they represent is coming at an increasing
price," Merisotis says, citing the rising debate about affordability and
student debt. "The market is responding unfavorably."
Merisotis believes the
answer is to better define all college degrees in terms of the acquisition of
specialized knowledge and higher-order skills — in other words,
"competencies."
Lumina is about to release
the final version of a document called the "Degree Qualifications
Profile." It aims to provide a common basis for understanding the
competencies required for an associate's, bachelor's or master's degree in any
field.
In its draft form, around
400 institutions from small liberal arts colleges to large community colleges
have begun to use the document in their strategic planning.
Excelsior College's
Ebersole agrees that the idea of competency-based degrees is bigger than adult
education alone. But his vision is a little different from Merisotis'.
He says employer input in
a given field is crucial in seeing whether these degrees will hold water.
"Ultimately it's the employer who is going to be the judge of whether
we've done a good job."
'Chronicle' and 'Inside Higher Ed' Laud SNHU's Model
of Competency-Based Education
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
SNHU Communications Office
Southern New Hampshire University's
College for America competence-based delivery model specifically addresses the
market's need for low-cost, highly measurable degrees that actually deliver
relevant competencies. The potential for a new federal loan and grant
eligibility not only means more access for working students... it signals the
possibilities of a whole new way to deliver learning that we think can
significantly boost national competitiveness.
Beyond the Credit Hour
Inside Higher Ed
March 19, 2013
by Paul Fain
The U.S. Department of Education has
endorsed competency-based education with the release today of a letter that
encourages interested colleges to seek federal approval for degree programs
that do not rely on the credit hour to measure student learning.
Department officials also said
Monday that they will give a green light soon to Southern New Hampshire
University’s College for America, which would be the first to attempt the "direct assessment" of learning – meaning no
link to the credit hour – and also be eligible for participation in federal
financial aid programs.
Southern New Hampshire won’t be the
last to give direct assessment a whirl, or at least that’s what the department
is hoping. And a wide range of institutions have discussed the approach with
department officials. One is Capella University. Others could include Northern
Arizona University, Brandman University and Bellevue University, to name a few.
Read Complete Story
Student Aid Can Be Awarded for
'Competencies,' Not Just Credit Hours, U.S. Says
Chronicle of Higher Education
March 19, 2013
By Kelly Field
Washington
It's official: Colleges can now
award federal student aid based on measured "competencies," not just credit hours.
In a letter
sent to colleges on Tuesday, the U.S. Education Department told them they may
apply to provide federal student aid to students enrolled in
"competency-based" programs and spelled out a process for doing so.
The long-awaited letter was issued
as the department is poised to approve an application by Southern New Hampshire
University to award aid based on the
direct assessment of student learning. The college
has served as a test case for the department as it has weighed how to extend
aid to new models of learning while guarding against fraud.
Read Complete Story
Inside Higher Ed
Beyond the Credit Hour
March 19, 2013
By
The U.S.
Department of Education has endorsed competency-based education with the
release today of a letter that encourages interested colleges to seek federal
approval for degree programs that do not rely on the credit hour to measure
student learning.
Department
officials also said Monday that they will give a green light soon to Southern
New Hampshire University’s College for America, which would be the first to attempt the “direct assessment” of learning – meaning no link to
the credit hour – and also be eligible for participation in federal financial
aid programs.
Southern New
Hampshire won’t be the last to give direct assessment a whirl, or at least
that’s what the department is hoping. And a wide range of institutions have
discussed the approach with department officials. One is Capella University.
Others could include Northern Arizona University, Brandman University and
Bellevue University, to name a few.
“This is a
key step forward in expanding access to affordable higher education,” said Arne
Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, in a written statement. “We know many
students and adult learners across the country need the flexibility to fit
their education into their lives or work through a class on their own pace, and
these competency-based programs offer those features.”
Southern New
Hampshire last fall received approval from its regional accreditor for College
for America. More colleges will need to take that step for the direct
assessment form of competency-based education to spread. But now they know the
feds are supportive.
“The
department plans to collaborate with both accrediting agencies and the higher
education community to encourage the use of this innovative approach when
appropriate,” wrote David A. Bergeron, acting assistant secretary for
postsecondary education, in the “Dear Colleague” letter the department
distributed today.
The letter
does not seek to alter current federal regulations, but instead gives guidance
to colleges that want to pursue an opening for direct assessment that the department created in 2006.
It is a reminder of how to seek federal aid eligibility for such programs. And
a supporting document the department released today offers step-by-step
instructions on how to apply.
"We're
very much trying to encourage additional institutions to come forward with
programs that use direct assessment," Bergeron said in an interview.
"This should be a very effective way of delivering education in the
future."
The support
from Washington could lend a major boost to competency-based education, said
Amy Laitinen, deputy director for higher education at the New America
Foundation and a former department policy adviser.
“It’s like a
big neon sign saying ‘use this,’ ” said Laitinen, who last year wrote a report that was critical of higher education’s purported
overreliance on the credit hour.
Federal
lawmakers have increasingly clamored for colleges and regulators to experiment
with creative delivery forms of higher education that have the potential to be
affordable and take less time for students, particularly working adults, to get
to graduation. Both President Obama and Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican,
in January seemed to open the door to competency-based education.
“The timing
of this is perfect,” Laitinen said, “given the bipartisan interest in
innovation in this space.”
'A
New Dimension'
Competency-based
education has its critics, in part because it looks so different from the
traditional classroom.
At College
for America, for example, students work at their own pace on online assessments
of 120 competencies. There are no courses or professors in the associate degree
program, although faculty reviewers oversee assessments. The degree costs
$2,500 per year, which could be $5,000 if a student works on it for two years,
or $1,250 if he or she finishes in six months, according to Paul LeBlanc, Southern New Hampshire’s president.
Some
colleges that might be willing to try direct assessment have held back out of
fear that the department might pull the rug out from under them, or from under
their regional accreditors, said Michael J. Offerman, a consultant and former
president of Capella.
Offerman
said the letter is a welcome dose of clarity and encouragement. “People want
some guidance because this is so new and such a departure from what they’re
used to.”
Department
officials said they would take a cautious approach to granting eligibility to
degree programs that sever ties to the credit hour, which has been used as a yard marker of quality in higher education for a century. One reason is to prevent
fraud and the misuse of federal aid dollars, a risk they said applies to any
form of higher education.
The goal is
to encourage “high-quality, rigorous” competency-based offerings, said Martha
J. Kanter, the under secretary of education. “We’re at a 1.0 stage. This is the
beginning of something new, so we’re going to be very careful.”
Proponents
of direct assessment had been watching for the letter for months. Its apparent
delay provoked speculation that perhaps the department was still mulling where
to come down in balancing the encouragement of innovation with the prevention
of possible fraud. But department officials said the document took time to
develop because they were responding to Southern New Hampshire’s application
and wanted to make sure that any questions that arose during the process were
factored into the letter.
LeBlanc
called the letter an “important and substantial step in the evolution of
competency-based learning.” He said discussions with the department over his
institution’s application had been collegial and positive, and that the
proposal had evolved because of those conversations.
Department
officials cautioned that today’s release was hardly their final word on
competency-based education. More questions are sure to arise when and if more
colleges apply for direct assessment, they said. And future regulatory changes
are also a possibility, as are statutory moves requiring Congressional action.
Kanter said
direct-assessment programs that stand the best chance of being successful at
the federal level will feature competencies that are recognized by both
accreditors and employers. And the degree tracks will need to be on firm
academic footing, she said.
When those
factors line up, competency-based programs “could shine a spotlight on what
students know,” said Kanter. “It’s adding a new dimension.”
· December
23, 2014
March
19, 2013
Student Aid Can Be Awarded for
'Competencies,' Not Just Credit Hours, U.S. Says
By
Kelly Field
Washington
It's official: Colleges
can now award federal student aid based on measured "competencies," not just credit hours.
In a letter sent to colleges on Tuesday, the U.S. Education Department told
them they may apply to provide federal student aid to students enrolled in
"competency-based" programs and spelled out a process for doing so.
The long-awaited letter
was issued as the department is poised to approve an application by Southern
New Hampshire University to award aid based on the direct assessment of student learning. The
college has served as a test case for the department as it has weighed how to
extend aid to new models of learning while guarding against fraud.
At first glance, the
letter does not seem all that remarkable; it simply confirms that colleges may
apply for aid under the "direct assessment" provision of the Higher
Education Act. That authority has existed since 2005, when Congress added the
provision to the federal law to benefit Western Governors University.
But Western Governors has
never used that authority, opting instead to keep converting its students'
competencies into credits. Most other colleges didn't learn about the provision
until recently, or assumed it didn't apply to them.
When college leaders
finally asked the Education Department about it, they said they received mixed
messages from agency leaders. Some colleges hesitated to develop
competency-based programs, not knowing if they would be eligible for financial
aid.
By clarifying that
colleges may apply under the "direct assessment" provision—and
encouraging them to do so—the Education Department is signaling a willingness
to move beyond "seat time"—the time students spend in class—in
awarding aid. That has important implications for new models of education,
supporters of the provision say.
"It moves away from
time as a proxy for learning, and that is key," said Paul LeBlanc,
president of Southern New Hampshire University.
What Will Employers Think?
In the letter, David A.
Bergeron, acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education, said
competency-based programs "have the potential for assuring the quality and
extent of learning, shortening the time to degree/certificate completion,
developing stackable credentials ... and reducing the overall cost of
education."
Speaking to reporters on
Monday, the under secretary of education, Martha J. Kanter, said the department
wanted to encourage innovation and experimentation, but she stressed that
officials would "be very careful going forward." She said her biggest
concern, beyond fraud, was that employers would lack confidence in the new
approaches.
"It's a new
methodology that really needs to be tested," she said.
As part of the
department's approval process, programs will have to map their competencies
back to credit hours, and accreditors will have to agree with institutions' assessment
of the equivalencies.
Sylvia Manning, president
of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges
and Schools, a regional accreditor, said, "Experience will show how
workable this process is."
She said she was encouraged,
however, by the department's promise to collaborate with colleges and
accreditors on this issue.
In the letter, department
officials acknowledged that direct-assessment authority "may not
adequately accommodate" all models of competency-based learning, and said
the department would work with accreditors and colleges on other ways to
recognize new approaches.
Amy Laitinen, deputy director for higher education at the
New America Foundation, said she hopes the department will expand its
direct-assessment authority to remedial education and test the idea of awarding
aid for prior-learning assessments.
"This letter really
opens the doors to other things," she said. "They are showing an
interest in collaborating, in making this an ongoing conversation."
That conversation will continue next month,
when a group of influential philanthropies, including the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation, will hold a meeting on the future
of competency-based learning. The goal, organizers have said, is to create a
"safe space" where accreditors, state regulators, department
officials, and colleges can figure out ways to promote the programs, while
protecting taxpayer dollars from fraud.
Purdue
University
Purdue University held a competition to encourage the creation of
competency-based programs, awarding $500,000 to its Polytechnic Institute in
September for developing a bachelor’s degree program where students receive
credit based on learned and demonstrated competencies. The program is
“transdisciplinary” — open to students in any discipline — with a theme-based
organization and learning driven by problem-solving instead of how much time is
spent in the classroom. The program started with 36 students this fall.
Purdue University News
Daniels awards prize for competency-based degree
to Purdue Polytechnic Institute
September 4, 2014
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|
Purdue
President Mitch Daniels, from left, and Gary Bertoline, dean of the College
of Technology, listen as student David Tishmack speaks at Thursday’s (Sept.
4) announcement. Tishmack, is a first-year mechanical engineering technology
student in the Polytechnic program. (Purdue Univesity photo/Mark Simons)
Download
Photo
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue President Mitch Daniels on Thursday (Sept. 4)
announced that he has awarded a $500,000 prize to the College of Technology,
newly redesigned as Purdue Polytechnic Institute, for a proposal to create a
transdisciplinary bachelor’s degree program based on learned and demonstrated
competencies.
The Purdue Polytechnic Institute is a key element of the university’s Purdue Moves initiatives unveiled by Daniels in early fall 2013. Gary Bertoline, dean
of the College of Technology, said the Purdue Polytechnic Institute will serve
as a “transformational engine” in the College of Technology by integrating
methods of learning that are driven by students’ passions and interests and,
importantly, by the needs of the marketplace.
Daniels said that Purdue is committed to advancing competency-based
education, which is one important element of many innovative features of the
Polytechnic Institute.
"I'm very pleased to announce that Purdue Polytechnic Institute has created
a dynamic, integrated degree program proposal that will allow students to move
as fast as their ability and diligence will permit, reducing their time to
degree and their costs as they do so," he said.
"We hope that this degree program will serve as a model for other
Purdue academic programs that lend themselves to competency-based education.
Many postgraduate jobs in our market are structured around entirely
competency-based models, and so by introducing students to such a model early,
we can prepare them for a lifetime of professional success."
Purdue Polytechnic Institute's planned implementation of its
competency-based degree positions the university as a leader among higher
education institutions exploring competency-based education, Daniels said.
Competency-based degrees are awarded based on demonstrated mastery of
concepts and skills rather than performance measured only at fixed calendar
intervals of classroom time.
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Incoming Purdue Polytechnic Institute freshmen try
out exercises to work on team building and collaboration. (Purdue University
photo/Mark Simons)
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Photo
|
In traditional grading, letter grades serve as a general indicator of a
student's classroom accomplishment, while competencies, such as those that are
a part of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute's proposal, effectively let
employers know what graduates are able to do. For example, in an
object-oriented programming course, students would need to successfully
complete three competencies: object-oriented foundations, programming control
structures and complex data structures. Within each, students would work at
their own pace to master specific concepts, vocabulary, software and uses.
Competencies have also been identified for higher order skills, such as
information literacy. Students would work through a cluster of competencies to
demonstrate skills such as making informed decisions (informed designer),
organizing and capturing knowledge for a team (knowledge manager), or curating
data.
The national interest in competency-based education, also called direct
assessment, comes on the heels of U.S Department of Education guidelines released last year for institutions wanting to provide federal student aid
to enrollees in such programs. In July, the U.S. House of Representatives also
passed legislation that further enables institutions offering competency-based
degrees to participate in federal student aid programs.
Purdue Polytechnic Institute faculty spent a year working to create the
proposed transdisciplinary degree. In the process, faculty examined all aspects
of higher education and incorporated the latest research about human learning
and motivation, said Bertoline and Fatma Mili, College of Technology associate
dean.
The degree program will be open to students in any discipline. Learning
will be organized around themes and driven by problems rather than "seat
time," and students will receive credentials based on demonstrated
competencies.
For fall 2014, Purdue Polytechnic Institute has accepted a pioneering
cohort of 36 students who are enrolled at Purdue through home departments in
the College of Technology and Exploratory Studies. Their first-year studies
will be delivered through the institute's proposed degree program, which will
be refined as the academic year progresses.
By fall 2015, Purdue is planning to begin admitting students directly to
the program through Purdue Polytechnic Institute.
"We will be using the latest experiential and scientific educational
research applied to emerging technology programs of study to create the best
education for a brighter future for our students, our communities and our
world,” Bertoline said. “Competency-based programs are one example of the
transformation that touches all parts of the college and nearly every fiber of
its culture.”
Mili said the transdisciplinary degree would give students a head start on
tackling the multifaceted demands they will face as 21st-century professionals.
"The future demands graduates who have the technical skills, the sense
of agency and the values-grounding to take on grand challenges and to be as
comfortable in the boardroom as they are in the boiler room," Mili said.
The transdisciplinary degree proposal has been met with enthusiasm among
industry leaders who look to Purdue to train graduates whose skills and
knowledge are on the cutting edge.
For instance, James Spohrer, director of IBM Global University Programs,
says the proposed program has great potential to benefit the next generation of
workers.
"Purdue Polytechnic Institute's unique competency-based
transdisciplinary bachelor's degree proposal has the potential to accelerate
the development of next-generation, T-shaped graduates, who possess
demonstrated competency depth as well as broad empathy to effectively hit the
ground running, work in teams and tackle the most pressing real-world
challenges of business and society," Spohrer said.
Through the program, students will graduate with the same degree but with
one or more concentrations that reflects their interests and passions. Some of
these concentrations will correlate to existing Purdue majors; others will
emerge from the program's environment.
For example, the degree program can allow agriculture students interested
in mobile app design to learn how to create an app that helps farmers identify
the best markets for their crops. Similarly, the program can allow an English
student interested in writing game scripts to learn how to animate storyboards
as he or she scripts them.
Instead of attending classes about a specific topic, the program's students
will attend concurrent, group-learning sessions that involve multiple subjects.
"As we work to transform the College of Technology, we also will
examine how our degree programs can mesh with the current and emerging needs of
today's employers in high-tech, advanced manufacturing and innovation,"
Bertoline said. "We also will partner with our colleagues across campus as
we work on competency-based programs to create innovative degree programs that
integrate technology with other disciplines."
Examples of these types of offerings, Bertoline said, could include degrees
in aviation financial analysis or unmanned aerial systems or concentrations on
integrated manufacturing systems.
The program initially will involve 18 faculty members from the colleges of
Education, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Technology and Science, and Purdue
University Libraries. Each student will have a faculty mentor who stays with
them throughout their program studies, and students will participate in key
decisions about their education.
Faculty members will assess and credential students through demonstrated
and documented competency as it is achieved.
That concept, combined with the program's student-driven and collaborative
nature, will produce graduates who are adept at the transdisciplinary thinking
and empathy required to make quick, action-oriented professional decisions,
Bertoline said.
He also said that while project-based senior projects have been a part of
the College of Technology in varying degrees for years, as Purdue Polytechnic
Institute evolves, these projects would take on even more importance.
"We want to make this an expectation of all of our students: that they
complete an industry-sponsored senior project," Bertoline said. "In
the second year of such a program in our School of Engineering Technology, we
have 35 industry-sponsored projects lined up, which provide work-team
experience, exposure to project demands and timelines, and most important,
industry contacts for after graduation."
Purdue Polytechnic Institute plans to admit about 100 students into this
degree program for fall 2015. Students in the fall 2014 cohort will be able to
transfer to the degree program once it begins admitting enrollees.
The $500,000 prize, funded through the president's office, is the
culmination of a university-wide challenge Daniels issued in an open letter in January. To help Purdue lead
the innovation and transformation of higher education nationwide, Daniels
offered $500,000 each to the Purdue department or program that created the
first three-year degree and the
first competency-based degree. The award for the three-year degree program went
to the Brian Lamb School of Communication for its proposal to offer an
accelerated plan of study in several areas that also requires summer courses.
Related information:
The
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan announced late in October that its accreditor, the Higher
Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools,
had approved the school’s first competency-based degree program: a master's of
health professions. The distance learning program is aimed at working
professionals in medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and social work.
Michigan started offering the degree last year, and it is seeking U.S.
Department of Education approval to be eligible to receive federal financial
aid.
The program doesn’t have traditional
campus-based classes — its students interact with mentors by phone, email,
video chat, or, for students and mentors near each other, in person. Upon
enrollment, a competency assessment panel assigns the students credit for their
existing competencies, and the students have to earn a total of 32 to 39 credit
equivalencies (i.e., competencies) to earn the degree. They also have to pass a
“summative assessment” based on their learning portfolio.
Inside Higher Ed
Big Ten and the Next
Big Thing
October 28, 2014
By
Competency-based
education is going upmarket. Three brand-name, Big Ten-affiliated institutions
are now offering degrees in this emerging form of higher education. Yet the new
programs at the University of Michigan, Purdue University and the University of
Wisconsin System are not aimed at the vast numbers of undergraduates who come
to those campuses for the traditional college experience. They are narrow in
scope, experimental and not all that sexy.
The
Wisconsin System’s “Flexible Option” is the most extensive and established of
the programs. Its five competency-based, online credentials, which range from a certificate to bachelor’s degrees, are
designed mostly for adult students with some college credits but no degree. And
they are offered by the system’s two-year institutions, its extension program,
and the Milwaukee campus -- not the Madison campus with the lake and the
80,000-seat Camp Randall Stadium.
Even so,
several observers said the measured arrivals of Michigan, Purdue and the
Wisconsin System will give a boost to competency-based education. They are
big-name institutions that are trying a different form of instruction, which
remains both promising and controversial. “It affirms
this new emphasis on student learning outcomes,” said Michelle R. Weise, a
senior research fellow with the Clayton Christensen Institute, who recently
published a book
with Christensen on the potential for online, competency-based education in
workforce development.
Weise said
other colleges probably are paying attention to Wisconsin and co., in ways that
they might not to lower-profile pioneers in competency-based education, such as
Southern New Hampshire and Capella Universities. “The network effect is always
there in higher education.” A common
thread with the three institutions’ experiments, university officials said, is
that they seek to focus more on what students know and can do rather than how
much time they spend in class.
“They will
emerge with proven competencies,” Mitch Daniels, Purdue’s president, said last
month in a written statement announcing the university’s transdisciplinary, competency-based bachelor’s degree. “Businesses will not have to guess
whether these students really are ready for the market, ready for their
business, ready for the world.”
Michigan
joined the party last week, with an announcement that its regional accreditor
had approved a new master’s
of health professions education. The competency-based degree, which the medical
school offers, is not based on the credit-hour standard. It is also a
distance-education degree track and lacks campus-based instruction.
The
university began offering the degree last year. It is designed for practicing
physicians, nurses, dentists and others professions in health fields who have
some teaching responsibilities and want to climb the career ladder. Most
students will have terminal degrees and a decade or more of professional
experience. In a Web video
about the program, Larry Gruppen, Michigan’s chair of medical education, said
the program combines practical skills and scholarship. “You will
learn through doing relevant, education-related activities,” he said, “not by
sitting through a series of lectures.”
'Professional
Activities'
Michigan’s
medical school submitted an application for the degree program to the Higher
Learning Commission (HLC), said John A. Vasquez, a program manager for the
degree. The commission issued a green light last month. Michigan officials now
will seek federal-aid eligibility from the U.S. Department of Education. A
competency-based education program wasn’t such a big stretch, said Vasquez.
That’s because medical professions have long used competencies and focused on
task-based learning. Medical residents, for example, spend years working to
hone their skills in well-defined areas.
Faculty
members and administrators at the medical school worked for about three years
designing the master’s degree. Vasquez said the central challenge was to gear
the program to seasoned medical professionals.
“How are we
going to get these people to come back to school?” was one key question, he
said.
So Michigan
brought the master’s degree to students, with distance learning that relies on
interaction with mentors via phone, email, Skype or in-person for students who
are nearby.
The program
“does not have classes or courses in the traditional sense,” Michigan said in
its application to the HLC. “Rather, the key unit of learning is the
professional activity, which in many ways resembles a credit of independent
study.” After
enrolling, each student’s experience and learning is reviewed by a “competency
assessment panel,” which assigns credit for existing competencies. Students are
then assigned a mentor who is their main faculty contact. But students also
interact with faculty assessors and subject-matter experts.
“The main
role of the mentor is to promote learning through professional activities,
facilitate learner connections with subject matter experts and learning
resources,” according to the university’s application, as well as to “guide the
learner in the process of professional and educational planning, and advise the
learner on any issues related to the program." To
demonstrate competency, students choose from 21 activities that are tied to the
various health professions (see chart), depending on which ones are part of their job. These
include tasks (see chart)
like designing and beginning a research study, creating a teaching portfolio
and critiquing a curricular change.
Activities
“map” to the program’s required competencies. More demanding ones might be
linked to five competencies, the university said, with one or two on the low
end. These competencies in turn match up with credit equivalencies. Students
must provide documentation and evidence of competency, which could be a paper,
video presentation, PowerPoint, grant application, portfolio or some
combination of multiple pieces of evidence.
To
successfully earn the degree, students must earn between 32 and 39 credit
equivalencies. However, the program is a “direct assessment” degree, which means that competencies rather than credits
are its currency. Another graduation requirement is that students pass a final
“summative assessment,” which is based on their learning portfolio. The pace
throughout is flexible, and students could finish more quickly than the typical
program length of three years. Vasquez said
the university created the degree because of a national shortage of medical
school faculty who can teach in a comprehensive way. Many clinicians, he said,
have begun master’s or doctoral programs but never finished them.
Competency-based
learning “makes sense for the health professions,” said Vasquez. “We can say
you’re competent because you know what you’re doing and why.” That
approach, however, might be trickier for undergraduate or other programs at
Michigan, he acknowledged. Campus-wide faculty groups, for example, might balk
at the wide adoption of competency-based curriculums.
New
Model
The
Wisconsin System is one of four institutions to receive approval from the Education Department and a regional accreditor for
a direct assessment program. That degree is the Flexible Option’s associate in
arts and science, which is self-paced. The system
is seeking department approval to offer financial aid for other online
credentials that are free from the credit-hour standard, said David Schejbal,
dean of continuing education, outreach and e-learning at Wisconsin’s Extension
program.
Schejbal
said faculty members are also working on two new competency-based degrees -- a
bachelor’s degree in professional studies and a master’s in geographic
information systems. The professional studies degree will be aimed at adult
degree completers, he said, and will be built by combining several new
stackable certificates.
The system
is being intentional in how it creates the new curriculums, said Schejbal. That
means starting with top-level competencies and then working backward to get
more granular. He said faculty members are using the Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications
Profile and the Liberal Education and
America’s Promise (LEAP) project from the Association of American Colleges and Universities
as guides as they design the programs.
Purdue’s competency-based degree is housed at the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, which serves
as a “transformational engine” in the university’s College of Technology. Last
month Daniels gave a $500,000 prize to the Institute for its proposal to create
a competency-based degree.
Faculty
spent a year prior to that announcement designing the transdisciplinary
bachelor’s degree program, which accepted an initial cohort of 36 university
students this fall. The students came from the traditional university. Next
year the university plans to begin admitting students directly to the program
through the Institute. It will be open to students in any discipline. Students in
the program will graduate with the same degree, the university said, but with
one or more concentrations that reflect their interests. Some of the
concentrations will link up with existing Purdue majors, while others will
emerge from the new program.
Purdue’s
program features concurrent, group-based learning sessions, which will touch on
multiple subjects, the university said. And a faculty mentor will be assigned
to each student. One reason
the new programs from Purdue, Michigan and the Wisconsin System have drawn
notice is that public universities face extra layers of bureaucracy when
creating degree programs that look different. As a result, private institutions
like Western Governors University and Southern New Hampshire have dominated the
field. Schejbal
said the regulatory process has been slow for Wisconsin's competency-based
degrees. And adjusting administrative procedures at the system has also been a
challenge, particularly those around financial aid and student registration. “It’s really
rebuilding all of the back-end processes from scratch,” he said, because the
new degrees “don’t fit the model.”
