The traditional education system is designed around time rather than learning, with a one-size-fits-all curriculum and students moving on after a set amount of time regardless of what or how much they have learned. Educators must rethink how time plays a role in education and instead put attention on student mastery, ensuring each student gets the…

The new comparative research in this volume explores the global flow of competence-based education, curricular policy, and frameworks for instructional practice. Taking critical perspectives, the chapters trace the pathways through which educators and policy actors adopted and reshaped competence-based education as promoted by the OECD, the World…

The one-size-fits-all instructional and assessment practices of the past no longer equitably meet the needs of all students. Competency-based education (CBE) has emerged not only as an innovation in education, but as a true transformation of the approaches to how we traditionally "do" school. In "Deeper Competency-Based…

The Mastery-based Learning (MBL) Work Group has examined opportunities to increase student access to relevant and robust mastery-based academic pathways aligned to personal career goals and postsecondary education, and reviewed the role of the High School and Beyond Plan (HSBP) in supporting mastery-based learning. The Work Group members believe…

Centering social justice into social work practice is vital to the profession, but both "what" and "how" to accomplish this task are pedagogical challenges in social work education. This teaching note introduces an elective course open to both Master of Social Work and doctoral students to develop holistic competence for…

Based on reports created for the 2017 National Summit on K-12 Competency-Based Education, this article explores how educators can take action to build momentum for and implement competency education and performance assessment. As a guide to taking action, the article provides the following: (1) links to the four framing reports from the Summit;…

At the heart of a mature competency-based learning system lies a fundamental commitment to meeting all students where they are. This monograph explores three driving questions that open the door to a discussion of the relational, pedagogical and structural dimensions of meeting students where they are: (1) How do we know where students are? (2)…

What if you could remove time and space pressures from the process of teaching and learning? The authors of "Off the Clock" not only suggest this, but they have implemented it in New Hampshire. Due in part to their work, the New England Consortium won the 2011 Frank Newman Award for State Innovation through the Education Commission of…

Proficiency-Based Education is a contemporary instructional model that grew out of the competency-based education movement of the 1980's and 90's. It is based on the premise that TIME is flexible and that students work at their own pace until they have mastered necessary content and skills. As students demonstrate proficiency, then move on to more…

The promise, embraced by governments around the world, is that the knowledge economy will provide knowledge workers with a degree of autonomy and permission to think which enables them to be creative and to attract high incomes. What credence should we give to this promise? The current economic crisis is provoking a reappraisal of both economic…

The explosion of information and increasing complexity of the modern workplace have placed new burdens and demands on professional schools and programs. Professional schools, such as those in business, engineering, and the health professions, have come under increasing scrutiny as the required exit competencies for graduates have shifted from…

This paper reports on a case study investigating learning outcomes at the individual and organisational level of a cross-institutional innovation project based on the SOAP approach. SOAP integrates "S"chooling of teachers, "O"rganisational development of schools, "A"ction- and development-oriented research, and…

The Institute for Physiotherapy, part of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam in the Netherlands, engaged in a fundamental change in their curriculum. This change encompassed three fundamental elements: (1) a fully competency-based programme; (2) a learning environment designed to enable the development of these professional competencies; and (3) an…

Maintains that, throughout U.S. educational history, expectations of what students should learn have changed only a few times. Discusses competency-based education in social studies and curriculum standards established by the Illinois State Board of Education. Includes criteria standards for social studies. (CFR)

As the world has moved from the industrial age to a technology-based society in which individual and societal competence is paramount, the focus of educational systems must shift from the basic ABC's to Competency-Based Education (CBE). Educational priorities must be continually revised to meet competitive and ever-changing workplace demands and…