Posts Tagged: competency-based education

Competency-Based Education in New Hampshire: Implementing State Policies in the Land of Local Control

With changes to state policy in 2005, New Hampshire became one of the leading states in the nation in competency-based education school reform. The Granite State’s approach requires school districts to award high school diplomas based on a mastery of competencies (rather than the traditional measure of seat-time). But state policy is only the first step in change: What makes a difference to...

Living with Abundant Information: What’s a College to Do?

With its October 2014 daylong conference on competency-based education and Higher Education Innovation Challenge (HEIC), the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) has firmly grasped the horns of disruptive change. It is creating a space in which New England states and institutions can wrestle with the critical issues driven by abundant information. Collectively, these issues encompass ever...

Mind the Gap … Between Grad Skills and Employer Expectations

Much has been written in both the business and higher education press about the gap between today’s jobs and the skills presented by those seeking work. The fact that U.S. Department of Labor statistics show 9.6 million people out of work with 4.8 million jobs still unfilled (August 2014) suggests a problem. However, little agreement exists as to the source of this disparity or what needs to...

New Directions for Higher Education: Q&A with CAEL’s Tate on Prior Learning, Competency-Based Ed

In this installment of NEJHE's New Directions for Higher Education series, Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, interviews Pamela Tate, president and CEO of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). NEJHE launched the series in 2013 to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on...

NEBHE Sets Conference on “Competency-Based Education” as NE High Schools Boost “Proficiency-Based” Cousin

NEBHE will explore competency-based education (CBE) during a conference titled The Case for Competency-Based Education: A New Age of Teaching and Learning? to be held Monday, Oct. 20 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Among questions to be explored by speakers: What is the evidence that CBE is a more effective than traditional instructional strategies? What does CBE mean for the ever-risin...

Credit for What You Know, Not How Long You Sit

Zach Sherman earned an associate degree from us in just under 100 days. He did in about three months what many students struggle to do in two years in full-time degree programs. Zach works the graveyard shift at a ConAgra food plant in Troy, Ohio, and he was in many ways an exceptional case: unencumbered with family responsibilities, willing to put in several hours a day, a voracious reader posses...