This article was written and published by Julia Freeland for WISE ed.review.
Who doesn’t remember the cycle of emotions present when taking exams in school or university? The efforts to memorize everything, sitting for the exam, and receiving the grade a few days later, when we were already thinking and studying intensely another subject. The grades probably reflected what we knew on the day of the test, but we were rarely given the opportunity to go back and learn what we hadn’t mastered.
Competency-based education offers an alternative philosophy about when and under what conditions students should be assessed and move on to new content. In these models, students’ progress according to the mastery they achieve. Assessment becomes the cornerstone of competency-based approaches: students only move on to new or more difficult material when they can demonstrate that they have mastered the basic competencies and concepts. This means they advance at different paces and sometimes along different pathways. A competency-based system, therefore, requires a paradigm shift in both how and when student mastery is assessed.
How Is Student Mastery Assessed?
In the United States, competency-based secondary schools use various modalities to assess students. In New Hampshire, for example, all secondary schools calculate credits based on competencies rather than time. Certain schools, like Sanborn Regional High School, continue to use traditional exams, but with a key difference: they offer “no-penalty recovery” for students who score below 80%. Thus, students do not fail; rather, they study the material again until they can retake the tests to demonstrate mastery.
Other schools, such as the North Country Charter Academy, which use a blended curriculum, rely on self-paced online assessments and receive in-person assistance from teachers as needed. In these schools, online assessments calibrate gaps in the student’s understanding and determine when each student is ready to move on to the next topic or module.
In other models, like the case of Next Charter School, mastery over a subject is evaluated through student projects, rather than traditional tests. For example, social studies students might be required to write a letter to the President of the United States with foreign policy proposals, incorporating historical context and reasoning that justifies the proposed action. To assess such projects, the school provides additional support and opportunities to revisit the material before evaluating the final project.
Along the way, teachers use various formative assessment methods. For example, small quizzes help calibrate students’ progress toward mastering different competencies, as well as their readiness for the final project. This way, students are not assessed until they are seen as prepared, rather than according to a preset plan that does not consider whether they have achieved mastery. Additionally, if a student fails to demonstrate mastery in a final project, they have the option to revise it or design a new one to cover the competencies they did not pass.
Schools not only design systems and processes for continuous assessment, but increasingly incorporate performance assessments into their curricula. These tests focus on the application of competencies rather than simple memorization of facts. For example, a student might be able to answer multiple-choice questions on a math test, but with performance assessment, their ability to calculate change in dollars and cents in the context of a purchase and sale will be tested.
Some schools, like Sanborn, design performance tasks that can be administered through traditional exams but test concepts in real-world contexts. Others have incorporated performance-based assessment into projects (like the aforementioned letter to the President), to apply historical knowledge in an argumentative writing. At MC2 and other schools, students are required to defend their learning before a faculty panel, much like a thesis defense.
When Are Students Assessed?
To create a competency-based model, not only are new assessment methods needed, but also more flexible and on-demand opportunities for students to take exams. Without an assessment plan that allows students to take exams when they are ready, and to revisit what they have not mastered, schools will not be able to achieve a truly competency-based model.
“On-demand assessment” challenges traditional approaches to learning verification, which follow a predefined academic calendar. Schools must reconsider their calendar and adopt a more individualized perspective, assessing students when they are ready, not at a predetermined time. This is possible in small settings, but on larger scales, it requires new technological platforms that track student progress, calculate when they will be ready for assessment, and in some cases, provide on-demand assessment items. Without these tools, tracking individual progress and planning appropriate assessments can be an overwhelming task for any educator.
State accountability systems, such as annual exams, also pose an obstacle to on-demand assessment. To reconcile these hierarchical accountability regimes and increasingly personalized learning systems, national or state tests must be administered more flexibly.
For a more complete view of how 13 schools are transitioning to competency-based learning in New Hampshire (United States), see: From policy to practice: How competency-based education is evolving in New Hampshire.
Julia Freeland
Julia Freeland is a leading researcher in the field of education and currently serves as Director of Education Research at the Clayton Christensen Institute, a think tank dedicated to disruptive innovation in education. Her work focuses on how social networks and social capital can transform education. She is the author of the book “Who You Know: Unlocking Innovations that Expand Students’ Networks,” in which she explores how social and professional connections can significantly influence students’ educational and career opportunities, proposing that schools should intentionally help students expand their networks. Specializing in educational innovation, Fisher has also written about trends in the EdTech market, blended learning, competency-based education, and the future of schools. Among her most recent articles are The educator’s dilemma: When and how schools should embrace poverty relief(Link is external) (Link opens in new window), Schools and software: What’s now and what’s next(Link is external) (Link opens in new window) and Blending toward competency: Early patterns of blended learning and competency-based education in New Hampshire.
