Late last month the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) released results for the long-term trend assessment in mathematics. The results were not happy news. We continue to see evidence of student performance being lower now than in years and decades past, due to COVID. This decline is in spite of an “almost” normal year of school occurring in 2022–23. I say “almost” normal because our teachers are still exhausted. As NAEP results show, helping students reach the achievement levels of their peers from the pre-COVID era is not an easy task, especially in classrooms where we have returned to our traditional approach of teaching and learning. My teacher friends report they continue to help students (a) connect with each other, (b) learn how to navigate a classroom in such fundamental ways such as getting in a line to go to lunch, and (c) work independently in their seats.
Figure 1: Geometry
Graphic by geralt at Pixalbay
As readers of this blog know, I am gathering perspectives on the different ways competency-based education can be implemented. Our one size fits all approach to teaching and learning is not helping us recover and accelerate student learning. I want teachers to have an easier time of determining where students are currently and where students need to go. I want them to have an easier time supporting the range of student abilities and social-emotional needs they find in their classroom. So, I was pretty excited to read that Wyoming is engaging in a competency-based pilot!
The first book I read on implementing competency education can be found here https://mcschneiderphd.org/2023/03/05/a-reflection-based-on-leading-a-competency-based-secondary-school/. Leading a Competency-based Secondary School is an excellent resource for administrators. The book I just finished, Breaking with Tradition: The Shift to Competency-based Learning in PLCS at Work by Brian M. Stack and Jonathan G. Vander Els, was recommended to me. I think this book is built primarily for teachers, and I find it inspirational.
“Breaking with Tradition: The Shift to Competency-base Learning in PLCS at Work” provides a “why” for a change from the traditional model of instruction to the more innovative. More important, the authors note that teachers need to set a vision in response to these central questions.
- What is our commitment to each child’s learning?
- How will we respond when some students don’t learn?
These are amazing questions for teachers to use to create a vision for a school-wide roll out of competency-based education. These are important questions we should ask ourselves as individuals, especially if we are interested in rolling out a competency-based framework in our classroom without a school-wide initiative, which is what I found myself doing as a teacher.
Every teacher can ask,
- What is my commitment to each child’s learning?
- How will I respond when some students don’t learn?
And an additional question I propose:
What relationship centered in student learning will I establish with parents?
Working towards Transfer and Mastery
State achievement standards imply that the work of teachers is centered in giving students repeated opportunities to engage in the transfer of what the student has learned to a new context. Mastery is not memorization. One of the most compelling research studies I have read found that students who were provided more authentic higher-order thinking tasks that connected to students lives beyond the classroom tended to achieve greater than average gains on their standardized tests. Stack and Vander Els recommended that teachers not only create performance tasks for students, but when possible, they deliver common performance tasks and calibrate their grading expectations of student performance for that task with teachers who teach in the same grade or school. The authors also advocated for the use of learning progressions, which I think is a central component of establishing where a student is now and what learning is likely needed next. Having common learning progressions within a grade also allows teachers to engage in formative assessment conferences with parents. Even better teachers can facilitate student-led conferences in which students share their learning goal, where they are now, and what the evidence should look like when they reach mastery with their parents or guardian. In this context teachers are partnering with parents and students to get there.
I love that Stack and Vander Els are critical of averaging grades throughout the grading period (page 16). Often teachers measure students while they are in the process of learning, therefore, Stack and Vander Els recommended that grading systems weight the most recent assessment of the material more than an earlier assessment to provide an accurate representation of where the student is currently in their mastery of a learning target. I also like this because if a student misses or skips an assignment, their later grade is a better measure of their understanding of the learning target because the later assignment matters more.
Separating Grades and Student Work Habits
Figure 2: Seventh-graders sitting on the floor doing homework
Photo by Allison Shelly for EDUimages
How will you respond when some students don’t learn? What will you do when that cell phone is out or that ear bud is in?
Stack and Vander Els address common teacher concerns to mastery learning, especially that frequently asked question, “How do I handle students who do not hand in work on time?” I like that the authors think about a commitment to student learning means separating grades from behavior (or dispositions). Competency learning by its very nature supports good habits such as task initiation, especially in a project-based learning context where students have choice in how to demonstrate what they know. While Stack and Vander Els recommended not grading late work and only providing students opportunities to hand work in on time, I wondered about other ways of separating the late behavior from the learning that needs to happen. For example, for work that is not submitted on time are Saturday school hours, after school detentions, or silent work lunches better tools? Might these tools help the student carve out time to complete the work as well as serve as a deterrent from submitting work late? One issue that schools might consider in support of equity is co-mingling the notion of after school detentions with after school study hall – in which both are one and the same and give students access to an adult that can help students complete work if necessary. This of course requires students to find a ride home or the school to bus students– no small expense. When we consider that not all students have home support, some are trying to work an almost full-time job, and others have executive functioning deficits juggling competing assignments, the comingling of detention/study hall just makes sense to me.
I liked this book because it left me thinking about meaty policy questions. The authors discussed moving students on when proficient, but what does one do with students who are not moving on? Is moving students on when they hit proficiency the right option? Or should students be asked to achieve advanced proficiency to accelerate and move out of the grade? For students who are not moving on, the authors discussed virtual learning makeup sessions and summer school as options. Those are options once a child has failed. What are the staffing considerations for students who are not moving forward during the year? The authors noted that schools must develop a schedule to provide students extra, supplemental instruction. Easier said than done, and it likely requires we set aside time for remediation, enrichment, and practicing the social-emotional skills students need to foster as independent learners.
Almost every decision we make to support and accelerate student learning can be centered in the authors’ two fundamental vision questions.
- What is our commitment to each child’s learning?
- How will we respond when some students don’t learn?
Making decisions from the lens of these two questions surely will help us innovate and better serve students!
Actionable Assessments in the Classroom 
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