7 ms·

One change I'd like to see in education is a wider use of competency-based education. In this approach, students earn their credit when they have mastered the m

by japhyr 12y ago

One change I'd like to see in education is a wider use of competency-based education. In this approach, students earn their credit when they have mastered the material for a course, not just at the end of a semester. This approach can be made to work for high-performing students, and low-performing students. Master the material in a course in half the traditional time? Earn your credit then. Need another month to master the material? Take that time, and earn your credit when you're competent in the material. Most of us know the adage that "work expands to fill the time we are given to accomplish it". This is perhaps nowhere more true than in school. Take the time component out of learning assessment, and let people progress at their own pace. Most students are capable of working much more efficiently than they do, but there's no incentive to do so. In fact, there's a disincentive for most people; if you finish early, the teacher will probably just give you more work. Some good teachers motivate strong students to finish early so they can move on to more interesting work; I've heard far more stories of teachers who respond to early completion by just offering more of the same work. If you're curious about this, a good place to start reading is on the Competency Works site: http://www.competencyworks.org/resources/recommended-reading/ http://www.competencyworks.org/resources/recommended-reading...

jiggy2011 12y ago
The barrier to implementing this would surely be teaching resources, how do you teach a class if all students are at different stages in the course material? You would need to have very small class sizes.
- japhyr 12y ago
  You are certainly correct in identifying one of the challenges to implementing this kind of model. But the reality is, that students in most classes are at different stages of understanding. We're just used to a model where everyone is expected to be at the same place all the time, and tend to bore the students who are "ahead" and frustrate the students who are "behind". There are other models, which address this issue of pacing and differentiation effectively. Sorry to not give a more complete answer at the moment.
- saraid216 12y ago
  Why do we need classes, specifically? Can the problem they solve be solved in a different way?
xorcist 12y ago
I personally suspect "earn credit" is the problem here. It incentivizes not learning. Gamification has never done any good for academia. The ones motivated by such things don't learn anyway, and the truly excellent students would have been just as good without them. I'm not saying I have a better system on hold, just that a lot of energy is spent on doing obvious and wrong things.
- japhyr 12y ago
  I think you can narrow it down. Earning credit isn't bad necessarily, but if the primary way to earn credit is to sit in a class for an hour a day for 4.5 months, then we've probably disincentivized learning. Credit can be a meaningful way to track an individual's learning, but earning credit should be more closely tied to what you've learned than how much time you've sat in a class.
- kazagistar 12y ago
  Interesting. Can you link some evidence of gamification failing? I have only ever heard good things about it.
  - saraid216 12y ago
    Read pretty much anything by Alfie Kohn. The book he's best known for is http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/541132.Punished_by_Rewards http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/541132.Punished_by_Reward...
jtheory 12y ago
How is competency evaluated, though? This whole approach relies on testing of some kind that can reliably measure competency in a subject area that also needs to be well-defined. If we had that -- if the material that all students should learn could actually be built into the "correct" curriculum, and tests could be made that would measure if the student had mastered each level -- then that would be great. Students could learn in class, or sensibly test out of entire grades at a time. Teachers could be paid (or fired) based on how well their students mastered the curriculum, and school's funding could be dependent on their students hitting certain percentages. Unfortunately that underlying foundation isn't real; defining that curriculum means cutting up knowledge into odd shapes that don't match well to useful practical knowledge, or how most people learn. Being good at passing standardized tests mostly identifies students with good test-taking skills. Teachers who will be evaluated based on this sole, shitty measure at the end of the year are obliged to spend their time training students for the test, and have to cut out the field trips, explorations, experiments -- basically, all of the things that make inspiring teachers inspiring is no longer considered valuable. Citations required, to be sure (I don't have the spare time to dig around now) -- but some of this is common sense. If you set up a rewards system, you have to be really smart about what, exactly, you're rewarding. The most valuable educational experiences are not generally found in drilling for a standardized test, I think; so setting up a system where that's the only thing rewarded is going to be unhelpful.
- japhyr 12y ago
  You're absolutely right that you have to be careful about how you assess students' mastery of a subject. The fact that this does not seem easy isn't a good reason to shy away from it. A few ways that this can be dealt with: - Many courses already have a final exam well-established. Some states are starting to require that students be given the option to test out of core courses, and one option is to let them take the final. This doesn't mean take the final as many times as you want until you pass; we can set reasonable limits on offering opportunities to test out. - Portfolio-based assessment moves beyond just using standardized tests to assess competence. At my school, we set up independent studies frequently for students whose educational history is often checkered. These students develop a set of skills and knowledge in their course of study, and then demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways. If you've set up the structures effectively, it's not overwhelming to individualize instruction for students who need it. One student's story: I knew a student who passed Algebra 1 and failed French 1 in 8th grade. In 9th grade he was given Algebra 1, and he was placed in French 2. His school wouldn't switch his classes; he failed Algebra because he refused to do all the work over again for a class he had passed, and he failed French 2 because he was in over his head. We gave this student the chance to test out of some of his math credit, and placed him in otherwise appropriate classes. When schools mess up, they often times have no idea how much that impacts individual students and their families.

by japhyr 12y ago

jiggy2011 12y ago

The barrier to implementing this would surely be teaching resources, how do you teach a class if all students are at different stages in the course material? You would need to have very small class sizes.

japhyr 12y ago
You are certainly correct in identifying one of the challenges to implementing this kind of model. But the reality is, that students in most classes are at different stages of understanding. We're just used to a model where everyone is expected to be at the same place all the time, and tend to bore the students who are "ahead" and frustrate the students who are "behind". There are other models, which address this issue of pacing and differentiation effectively. Sorry to not give a more complete answer at the moment.
saraid216 12y ago
Why do we need classes, specifically? Can the problem they solve be solved in a different way?

xorcist 12y ago

I personally suspect "earn credit" is the problem here. It incentivizes not learning. Gamification has never done any good for academia. The ones motivated by such things don't learn anyway, and the truly excellent students would have been just as good without them. I'm not saying I have a better system on hold, just that a lot of energy is spent on doing obvious and wrong things.

japhyr 12y ago
I think you can narrow it down. Earning credit isn't bad necessarily, but if the primary way to earn credit is to sit in a class for an hour a day for 4.5 months, then we've probably disincentivized learning. Credit can be a meaningful way to track an individual's learning, but earning credit should be more closely tied to what you've learned than how much time you've sat in a class.
kazagistar 12y ago
Interesting. Can you link some evidence of gamification failing? I have only ever heard good things about it.
- saraid216 12y ago
  Read pretty much anything by Alfie Kohn. The book he's best known for is http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/541132.Punished_by_Rewards http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/541132.Punished_by_Reward...

jtheory 12y ago

How is competency evaluated, though? This whole approach relies on testing of some kind that can reliably measure competency in a subject area that also needs to be well-defined. If we had that -- if the material that all students should learn could actually be built into the "correct" curriculum, and tests could be made that would measure if the student had mastered each level -- then that would be great. Students could learn in class, or sensibly test out of entire grades at a time. Teachers could be paid (or fired) based on how well their students mastered the curriculum, and school's funding could be dependent on their students hitting certain percentages. Unfortunately that underlying foundation isn't real; defining that curriculum means cutting up knowledge into odd shapes that don't match well to useful practical knowledge, or how most people learn. Being good at passing standardized tests mostly identifies students with good test-taking skills. Teachers who will be evaluated based on this sole, shitty measure at the end of the year are obliged to spend their time training students for the test, and have to cut out the field trips, explorations, experiments -- basically, all of the things that make inspiring teachers inspiring is no longer considered valuable. Citations required, to be sure (I don't have the spare time to dig around now) -- but some of this is common sense. If you set up a rewards system, you have to be really smart about what, exactly, you're rewarding. The most valuable educational experiences are not generally found in drilling for a standardized test, I think; so setting up a system where that's the only thing rewarded is going to be unhelpful.

japhyr 12y ago
You're absolutely right that you have to be careful about how you assess students' mastery of a subject. The fact that this does not seem easy isn't a good reason to shy away from it. A few ways that this can be dealt with: - Many courses already have a final exam well-established. Some states are starting to require that students be given the option to test out of core courses, and one option is to let them take the final. This doesn't mean take the final as many times as you want until you pass; we can set reasonable limits on offering opportunities to test out. - Portfolio-based assessment moves beyond just using standardized tests to assess competence. At my school, we set up independent studies frequently for students whose educational history is often checkered. These students develop a set of skills and knowledge in their course of study, and then demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways. If you've set up the structures effectively, it's not overwhelming to individualize instruction for students who need it. One student's story: I knew a student who passed Algebra 1 and failed French 1 in 8th grade. In 9th grade he was given Algebra 1, and he was placed in French 2. His school wouldn't switch his classes; he failed Algebra because he refused to do all the work over again for a class he had passed, and he failed French 2 because he was in over his head. We gave this student the chance to test out of some of his math credit, and placed him in otherwise appropriate classes. When schools mess up, they often times have no idea how much that impacts individual students and their families.