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The WHY of Competency Based Education

Added Jan 21, 2020 •

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Answering the questions as to why Keene High School is changing to Competency Based Education.

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In the fall of 2018, Keene High School students, parents, and staff had the opportunity to share questions they have about competency-based education at KHS. 
This is video #2 of a three part series based on questions from staff, students, and parents. This video focuses on answering the question: “Why is Keene High School changing to Competency-Based Education?”  
KHS wants to empower students to demonstrate their mastery and show what they know.
Our world has transformed with our ability to communicate and access information in an instant. This changes what students need from their education, and by necessity, how education is delivered. 
Knowledge is at our fingertips. We need to teach students how to locate and analyze this content in order to apply their understanding in a real-world situation.
Competency-based education allows for the flexibility and variety that every student needs to succeed, not just the students who have been traditionally served well. We believe in Competency-based education because it promotes equity and excellence for all of our students.
Competency-based education is meant to develop talent not sort talent.
One of the biggest advantages of competency-based education is that it recognizes all students have strengths and challenges and sometimes need support. 
Competency-based education includes specific, measurable learning targets. 
Learning targets, as their name implies, guide learning. 
Learning targets are in student-friendly language and based on rigorous college and career readiness standards, and students use them to guide their own learning.
When assessing students in competency-based education, teachers score individual learning targets, making it easier to identify any learning gaps and to focus each student’s learning experience on exactly what the student needs.
This approach is more focused on learning than simply taking a test, getting a grade, and moving on to the next topic.
Competency-based Education Empowers Students.
Students take ownership of their education and seek relevancy in their own lives.
Research confirms that people do better at a task if they know why they are doing it in the first place. Dan Pink, the author of Drive, points out that there’s an extreme difference between compliant behavior and engaged behavior. He explains with compliant behavior, students are doing what someone told them to do and how to do it. With engagement, students are doing something because they understand the meaning of the activity or task.
With CBE, students have more choice in how they demonstrate their mastery of concepts and skills. This is what we mean when we say students will show what they know. 
The American Institute for Research studied competency-based schools found:
•	Students who report having clear learning targets and who believe they had to master those targets to earn credit showed growth in their intrinsic motivation and self-management skills.
•	Students who report having the chance to retake exams to show mastery—even if they had previously failed—showed increased confidence in their ability, and they reported better study and self-management skills.
Competency-based Education Allows Students to Demonstrate Mastery
Schools should hold high expectations for all students and should promote academic excellence for each and every student.
All students should graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills to help them succeed in postsecondary education and the workplace.
Learning is more than just taking a test, getting a grade, and moving on to the next topic.
In a competency-based system, the goal is for students to demonstrate mastery of competencies. Students also have the opportunity to go beyond being competent by demonstrating exemplary work for specific competencies.
This is about developing talent and not sorting it.
Beyond academics KHS wants to prepare students for life and work.
Business and industry are calling on schools and colleges to develop “21st century skills,” such as collaboration, communication, innovation, problem solving, and responsibility. These skills are seen as valuable for success in the workplace, citizenship, and family life. 
To prepare our students for an ever changing world, students need to go beyond memorizing facts. They need deeper learning to understand how to take what is learned in one situation and apply it to new situations. 
KHS students will enter a workplace and fill jobs that have yet to be created. Through competency-based education, our students will master core academic content and demonstrate what they’re learning while also developing critical thinking, self-awareness, the ability to collaborate, and the communication skills necessary to succeed no matter what path they choose after they graduate.
The main reason Keene High School is moving to competency-based education is that we need to prepare our students for this ever changing world. 
In the past century, everything from modern medicine to personal computing has evolved and improved; yet our educational system has remained the same, despite evidence showing that it is not serving all our students.
We believe everything we do, every decision we make must be made with this thought in mind: what is best for our students?
Over the past three years, Keene High School has conducted extensive research and has worked with professional organizations such as the Center for Collaborative Education and PACE to guide us on our journey.
Competency-based education gives students, parents, and teachers a true reflection of what students know and can do while empowering all students to learn and do more.

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