Shifts Happen: Competency-Based Webinar

Education Systems Center at NIU invites you to view a recording of Shifts Happen: Covid-19 “Disruptions” Can Offer New Opportunities for Moving Toward Personalization and Competency-Based Approaches. Designed for education policymakers and practitioners, this webinar explores the opportunities remote learning provides to shift from traditional teaching and learning to more systemic personalized and competency-based approaches. Led by national experts, this session offers a framework with entry points and next steps for pivoting to personalized instructional systems that meet students “where they are” and support them in moving forward as they are ready. Participants examine the challenges they have addressed implementing remote learning and consider how shifting to personalized, competency-based approaches can provide a useful framework for the next school year and beyond.

Presenters: National experts in personalized and competency-based approaches Rose Colby, Karin Hess, and Daniel Joseph are the authors of the new book Deeper Competency-Based Learning: Making Equitable, Student-Centered, Sustainable Shifts. Also, hear from Illinois districts at the leading edge of implementing competency-based approaches through the state’s competency-based pilot.

Watch the Webinar

Download the Slides

Access Pre-Reading Materials

We encourage you to read these recent blog posts on competency-based education:

Speaker Bios:

Karin Hess, President, Educational Research in Action

Karin Hess is a former classroom teacher and school administrator with over 40 years of deep experience in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. She is the author of the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix (2009) and “A Local Assessment Toolkit to Promote Deeper Learning” (Corwin, 2018). Dr. Hess is recognized internationally as a leader in developing practical approaches for using cognitive rigor and learning progressions as the foundation for curriculum design and assessments at all levels of assessment systems. Dr. Hess contributed to Maine’s early thinking about how to design graduation exhibitions, facilitated New Hampshire’s development of model competencies in several content areas, and currently provides in-depth guidance in many states/school districts in the development of their competency-based educational systems.

Rose Colby, Competency-Based Learning and Assessment Specialist

Rose Colby assists schools in designing high-quality competency, assessment, and grading reform systems in many states. She is a Talent Cloud Fellow for 2Revolutions, member of the national Advisory Board, and contributor to Competency Works, the national clearinghouse and resource for innovative practices in competency education. She has served as Competency Education Consultant for N.H. Department of Education supporting school districts as they develop their competency education systems and in designing and supporting the new state accountability pilot system, the New Hampshire Performance Assessment for Competency Education (NH PACE). Author, national speaker, and presenter in the areas of competency-based learning, digital learning, differentiation, and school, Rose is also a designer and Adjunct Instructor in the Southern NH University/2Revolutions M.ED/CAGS program in Competency-Based Education.

Daniel Joseph, Founder and President, CBE Solutions

Daniel A. Joseph is an educational specialist who supports districts in developing strategic plans to support the transformation from time-based to competency-based systems of teaching and learning. Communicating with all shareholders and supporting them in developing monitors and measures for continuous improvement and sustainable change. Daniel has been involved with performance-based education for over 15 years in Maine and other states. Daniel strives to provide the knowledge, tools, and understanding to promote the depth of change required for all students to be successful. As a co-author of “Deeper Competency-Based Learning: Making Equitable, Student-Centered, Sustainable Shifts” (Corwin, 2020). Daniel’s experiences in the arenas of public will, policy, and practice provide direction and the support needed for sustained growth and progress in competency-based educational systems reform.