What’s New in K-12 Competency-Based Education?

New Books in Competency Education

• Author Rose Colby published Competency-Based Education: A New Architecture for K-12 Schooling, which introduces educators to a new model for anytime, anywhere schooling and provides tools and curriculum resources for redesigning the traditional structures of K–12 schools.
• Authors Brian Stack and Jonathan Vander Els published Breaking with Tradition: The Shift to Competency-Based Learning in PLCs at Work, which explores how the components of PLCs promote the principles of competency-based education and share real-world examples from practitioners who have made the transition to learner-centered teaching.

Grant Opportunities

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation released three new requests for proposals:

• Supporting and Developing Student-Centered Teachers and Administrators at Scale: This initiative supports a twelve to eighteen month grant for state education agencies and public school districts to adopt and implement the Educator Competencies for Personalized, Learner-Centered Teaching and/or Leadership Competencies for Learner-Centered, Personalized Education. Download the RFP here for more information.
• Amplifying Student Voice and Leadership: This initiative seeks to build the capacity of youth organizing groups in New England. Up to five new grantees from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont may be selected. Download the RFP for more information.
• Building Teacher Leadership for Student-Centered Learning: Public school districts are encouraged to apply for up to 18 months of funding to develop and launch or strengthen existing systemic teacher leadership opportunities that build authentic and deep teacher voice in district-level decision making. Download the RFP for more information.

Social Emotional Learning

• The Aspen Institute released a new report titled, The Evidence Base for How We Learn: Supporting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development.
• This article looks at measuring social emotional learning and highlights findings from CASEL’s design challenge.
• Rhode Island teacher Julio Alicea uses the poetry of rap music and ‘classroom constitutions’ to build relationships with the teens he teaches, providing individualized attention and nurturing.

Equity

• Ace Parsi and Susan Lyons wrote “Performance Assessments and Students with Disabilities.”
• This article explores ways to use design thinking to mitigate bias and resistance to change.

Food for Thought

• This reflective piece provides an example of how less teaching leads to more learning, evidenced by delinquent boys making huge academic gains when freed from classroom lessons.
• Where does personalized learning end and special education begin? Stefanina Baker explores this in this EdSurge article.
• Is homework compatible with personalized learning? EdSurge reflects on this question here.
• Tom Vander Ark reflects on education reform in the modern era.

News

• In partnership withCarnegie Corporation of New York — as part of its newly-launched Integration Design Consortium — 2Revolutions is launching a two-year national experiment to develop better, collaboratively-designed solutions to the siloization that holds back our communities as they push toward the future. Click here for more information on how to apply.
• 2Revs is spearheading a large-scale effort to make available free, high-quality learning content to help educators gain the knowledge and skills they need to personalize learning for students.  Read about this collaborative initiative here.

New Resources

• A new Connecticut report introduces guiding principles for school change efforts, school finance, and student-centered learning.
• The RAND Corporation released a new report, Designing Innovative High Schools: Implementation of the Opportunity by Design Initiative After Two Years, which describes findings from the first two years of implementation across two cohorts of the Opportunity by Design initiative. This interim report provides detailed examples of how design principles are being implemented, similarities and differences across schools and districts, and comparisons across cohorts and over time. This Education Dive article and this article from Education Week highlight some early lessons from the report.
• The Christensen Institute released a new paper titled,The State Innovator’s Toolkit: A guide to successfully managing innovation under ESSA.
• Making Community Connections and Summit Public Schools are recognized in this Brookings Institute report: Can We Leapfrog? The Potential of Education Innovations to Rapidly Accelerate Progress.

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