Competency-Based Learning
Genuine student-centered teaching and learning is at the heart of the education transformation advanced by NC New Schools/Breakthrough Learning since it first started helping develop and support innovative secondary schools more than 10 years ago. But educators working in and with these schools to make students the masters of their own learning have long felt hamstrung by an educational framework that often works at cross purposes to their goals of empowerment and success for all students.
As a first step to address that gap, NC New Schools/Breakthrough Learning and the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State University invited a broad range of educators and policy makers to spend a day in December focusing on competency-based learning as a promising approach gaining momentum in a growing number of states. Four national experts in the field — from the perspectives of both policy and practice — presented the benefits and challenges of what they described as a major shift in mindset and application. This report captures discussions and presentations from that event.
