Rachel B. Baker at AEI Education has a new report out about Competency Based Education (CBE) programs at the college level.
Following is a portion from the introduction to the executive summary:
The basic idea underlying CBE is simple: programs award credit based on demonstrated student competencies rather than on the amount of time a student has spent in a given course. Recent advances in technology, including online courses, computer adaptive education, interactive tutoring and mentoring, and the analysis of big data, have only added to CBE’s potential. But CBE models have dramatic implications for how schools serve students, and those changes can affect student success and scalability. Unfortunately, we still do not clearly understand how students actually experience education in a CBE model—that is, the day-to-day process of learning, assessment, and progression.
Based on the fact that so little is really known about how CBE works, Baker evaluates the structure of the CBE programs currently operating and offers some preliminary conclusions. Following are her key conclusions:
— Competency-based education (CBE) programs tend to serve students with previous professional or academic experience. This audience affects how the programs are structured and designed.
— CBE inverts the structure and choice of traditional higher education. The most clearly defined components of traditional higher education programs are much less structured in CBE programs, and the components of traditional higher education programs that are typically the most flexible and able to be personalized are often fixed in CBE programs.
— Striking differences exist between CBE and traditional higher education programs in how students are recruited, admissions and credit transfer policies, how credits are earned, and interactions with peers and faculty.
— The differences between CBE programs and more traditional higher education have important implications for student success and scalability. We need more information about how students experience these programs.
To read the full report: http://www.aei.org/publication/the-student-experience-how-competency-based-education-providers-serve-students/
