Whether you’re new to competency-based learning or standing back as a skeptic, here are four things to know about competency-based education (CBE)–a growing movement in our field.
In this article, I use the term “competency-based learning” synonymously with the term competency-based education (CBE), and prefer it because of its emphasis on humans and outcomes, rather than systems or structures (though these are important!). I use the term “learning experience” to describe both learning environments and learning interactions. I use the term “learning system” to describe the infrastructure that supports any given model of learning, such as the way we organize things like time, learning goals, or human capital, and the way we reinforce and guide these ways of organizing, such as through policies, practices, and norms.
Here we go. Four essential understandings about competency-based learning (CBL).
Competency-based learning is about ensuring a transparent and accessible pathway to the highest forms of learning for everyone. CBL approaches are designed backward from this key question: “How do humans actually get really good at things?” In this way, it can serve as a powerful means of making the science of learning–what we know now, and all that we continue to learn– both meaningful and visible for learners and stakeholders. CBL demystifies the marvel of building expertise, providing clarity about how to get there, and it draws on the best of learning science research to ensure learning experiences and systems are informed by these evidence-based approaches.
Why is CBL so focused on the tangible “how” of building expertise? Because the ultimate purpose and outcome of CBL is student agency. CBL is about helping learners get really good at the things that matter most to their lives and futures. This term “agency” is a big one in our field, but I tend to lean on Kundu’s definition (2020), but I’ve adapted it a bit: The capabilities, volition, and resilience to pursue one’s aspirations with confidence, navigate challenges, and create positive change in one’s life. Let’s break this down into a few parts:
This clarity of purpose behind a CBL approach is important. It helps us all get on the same page about why we’re here, even if we approach the work differently.
It also serves as a decision filter. Every design, policy, or practice decision we make, should flow backwards from what we know about how people learn and get good things–whether we’re talking about emotional self-regulation or mathematical reasoning. We can always ask the question, “If we do it this way, will it really help learners get better at X? If we make this decision about our learning system, will that foster student agency?”
This approach is not about checked boxes. It’s about flourishing humans. Competency-based learning models attend to the learning and developmental needs of the whole child, for the full trajectory of their learning potential. This means an exciting opportunity for symmetry between our K-12 systems and our workforce development systems aimed at preparing all people for the future of work.
Let’s build that.
However, it’s important to note that CBL rejects the notion that schools exist strictly to prepare future workers. Yes, CBL advocates are definitely about ensuring learning in school prepares learners to achieve economic security out in the world –and arguably, CBL has a long history of doing so much more effectively than other educational approaches out there. But that’s only part of the big picture. Young people are so much more than future workers.
CBL as an approach recognizes that one’s life is much more than their future employment, that the quality of one’s life is impacted deeply by one’s well-being, and that if we want to prepare young people for the future, we have to broaden the aperture of our learning outcomes and focus on such competencies as Sustaining Wellness, Navigating Conflict, Building Community, and so forth.
One first place to look when determining whether your CBL model is committed to the whole child is in the learning outcomes you’ve established for your model or system. The learning goals or competencies you’ve established should reflect core competencies that are essential not just to future work and lifelong learning, but personal wellness and engagement in community and civic life.
Humans are naturally curious, and innately driven to learn and get better. We have centuries of testimony to this. We have always learned by observation, trying things out in developmentally appropriate ways, practicing, failing, getting feedback, and sticking to something we care about or need to learn how to do.
How do babies learn to walk? Or speak? Or function in a family? Or eventually excel in a sport? Or present at a conference? Or run a successful business? Etcetera.
If I could boil CBL down to a single metaphor or model, it would be apprenticeship. Let’s picture it together.
The educational theory of “cognitive apprenticeship” is really one of the strongest underpinnings to the approach. I love this passage from the article, Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible (Collins, Brown, Holum, 1991):
In Ancient times, teaching and learning were accomplished through apprenticeship: We taught our children how to speak, grow crops, craft cabinets, or tailor clothes by showing them how and by helping them do it. Apprenticeship was the vehicle for transmitting the knowledge required for expert practice in fields from painting and sculpting to medicine and law. It was the natural way to learn. In modern times, apprenticeship has largely been replaced by formal schooling, except in children’s learning of language, in some aspects of graduate education, and in on-the-job training. We propose an alternative model of instruction that is accessible within the framework of the typical American classroom. It is a model of instruction that goes back to apprenticeship but incorporates elements of schooling. We call this model “cognitive apprenticeship” (Collins, Brown, and Newman, 1989).
While there are many differences between schooling and apprenticeship methods, we will focus on one. In apprenticeship, learners can see the processes of work: They watch a parent sow, plant, and harvest crops and help as they are able; they assist a tradesman as he crafts a cabinet; they piece together garments under the supervision of a more experienced tailor. Apprenticeship involves learning a physical, tangible activity. But in schooling, the “practice” of problem solving, reading comprehension, and writing is not at all obvious-it is not necessarily observable to the student. In apprenticeship, the processes of the activity are visible. In schooling, the processes of thinking are often invisible to both the students and the teacher. Cognitive apprenticeship is a model of instruction that works to make thinking visible.
The core principles of CBL, of apprenticeship-based learning, are ancient–and I believe will hold true even in our most future-facing models of education.
The biggest challenge to CBL at scale, really, is the rigid system we’ve got now, and the paradigms that undergird it. What is this “Goliath?” It’s industrial-era inspired models of education, which are focused on efficiency, linearity, standardization, and control and compliance.
I grew up in the Christian church. I always loved the story of David and Goliath, even if it made me want to cover my eyes at times! How is this little guy really gonna take down that giant?
CBL is the little guy.
And what is Goliath? Goliath is:
CBL is not happening at scale in the K-12 education system yet, but it’s coming. As of earlier this year, every state in the country has adopted legislation that paves the way for competency-based models, such as in the forms of waivers, flexibilities, or explicit policy supporting competency-based approaches. And many education leaders across the country are advancing CBL by creating Learner Profiles, graduate profile competencies, and integrating these competencies into their existing strategic initiatives.
CBL Partners is committed to the collective work of reshaping our K-12 education and workforce development systems so that they are more deeply human-centered, radically more responsive, and ultimately, that they deliver on the promise of equity in education that ensures every young person, and all of us, really, have a chance to build a bright future within a thriving community.
