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iNACOL & Partners Launch CompetencyWorks to Further Competency Education
CompetencyWorks, a collaborative project led by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) and other partners to advance competency-based education, launches today. CompetencyWorks is a place for thought leaders to share best practices, evaluate tough issues, view state policies and learn about new resources and research.
Common Core Launches Avalanche of Innovation
Common Core State Standards provide a national platform for innovation. For the first time, content developers can invest for a national market. The Core has triggered a wave of investment in engaging, personalized learning content and tools.
Competency-based Approach Can Support Personalized Learning in Ohio
Nearly 40 percent of college freshmen in Ohio need to take remedial courses because they are unprepared for college-level work. The total bill for remedial classes in 2009 came to $130 million, rising to $147 million in 2010. Remediation is most costly to students who take longer to complete their degrees and are more likely to drop out.
Riverside Virtual School Takes a Competency-Based Approach to Online Curriculum
Curriculum is personal. When created, teachers are essentially deciding what information is valuable enough to share with others. Will it challenge, engage, and inspire? Online curriculum allows for flexibility. One of the greatest things about online learning is that students work at their own pace, even with deadlines, the "when to work" is usually determined by the student. This is also one of the biggest challenges with online learning.
Building a Thoughtful Blend
Innosight Institute’s report The Rise of Blended Learning defines it as “any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace.” To their definition, I add a requirement that the shift to an online environment for part of the student is intended to boost learning and operating productivity. Here's a description of rotation and flex schools and tools.
Infographic: The Unprepared Nation
Knewton recently publish a new infographic "The Unprepared Nation: College Readiness Today," which takes a close look at college readiness among high school graduates in the U.S.
The Seven Steps to Becoming a 21st Century School or District
Last summer, as I was winding down my eight years as president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, I went around the country and met with 30 superintendents, asking them, "What can I do to support your efforts to implement 21st century education in your district?" Together we came up with the idea of creating a professional learning community (PLC) of education leaders committed to 21st century education. A team of us liked the idea so much that earlier this year we launched EdLeader21, a community of education leaders committed to building critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity into their educational system.
Demonstrated Competence
The goal of school is learning but we still manage it based on time. Students still progress a year at a time after a 180 day school year along with other kids their age. Occasionally politicians call for an end to social promotion, but just mean making struggling students repeat a grade. We didn’t really have a better way to manage matriculation in the era of data poverty.
iNACOL Calls for a Comprehensive Policy Redesign
The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) released "Cracking the Code: Synchronizing Policy and Practice for Performance-Based Learning" July, a report stating that it will take a "comprehensive policy redesign" to move toward competency-based learning beyond traditional K-12 advancement.
It's Not a Matter of Time
Chris Sturgis highlights two papers from iNACOL and questions how disruptive innovation theories apply to goods and services where there is a market failure, i.e. education.