September PTO: Competency Based Education 101

1. September PTO:Competency Based Education 101 The Direction of Concord School District and the State of New Hampshire

2. Competency Based Education: Why is it being used? • In 2005, New Hampshire began to build a competency-based education policy and has eliminated the Carnegie unit in its high schools. As the first effort of its kind, New Hampshire’s example demonstrates the power of this statewide competency-based education policy. • The NHDOE revised the state's Minimum Standards for School Approval in 2005. The new standards called for school districts to eliminate seat time and transition to a competency-based system that: • Provides students with a rigorous, personalized education; • Requires students to fulfill credit requirements through demonstrated mastery of course-level competencies; and • Encourages local educators and community stakeholders to lead the way in developing new high school delivery models

3. What is Competency Based Education? • Outcome-basedinstruction that is adaptive to the changing needs of students, teachers, and the community. Competencies describe the student’s ability to apply basic and other skills in situations that are commonly encountered in everyday life. • Systems of instruction, assessment, grading, and academic reporting that are based on students demonstrating that they have learned the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn as they progress through their education. In public schools, competency-based systems use state learning standards to determine academic expectations and define “competency” or “proficiency” in a given course, subject area, or grade level (although other sets of standards may also be used, including standards developed by districts and schools or by subject-area organizations).  • We are at the beginning of implementation…..

4. State of New Hampshire College and Career Ready MathCompetency 1: Students will reason abstractly and manipulate symbolic expressions to represent relationships and interpret expressions and equations in terms of the a given context for determining an unknown value. Standards for this competency: • I can symbolically represent relationships involving rational and irrational numbers. • I can interpret and apply the use of varied symbols in mathematical relationships, formulas, expressions and operations. • I can provide mathematical justification when evaluating expressions and modeling linear equations.

5. How will it work in Blue Duke Country • Grades will be based on demonstration of proficiency on grade level competencies and their connected standards. Seat time is not a measure of success in learning. • Percentages will not be used; the goal is proficiency as measured by one’s ability to demonstrate a skill or concept through application. • Averaging of overall performance will not be used as it does not represent students’ proficiency in competencies and standards. • Formative work will be assessed to provide parents data on weekly performance and inform teachers of their instructional efficacy. • Performance will be reported on a rubric (4-3-2-1) • Summative Assessments, performance tasks will measure students ability to “know and do” (apply) knowledge in real world circumstances.

6. Traditional Grading • High level of teacher independence prior to this system. • What is a percentage based grade, really? • It is a mix of different values placed on formative and summative work done over the course of an arbitrary period of time. • There is no recognition of progress made toward learning goals when averaging. • Prior to last year, each grade valued tests, homework, classwork and attitude in the classroom differently in determining the grade a student received on assigned work. This is consistent in my 30+ years working in education. I am excluding extra-credit from this equation….

7. Ms. Smith’s English Class Traditional Grading; Example A • Tests@ 25% of grade (3) 87% = 21.75 toward overall grade • Quizes@ 10% of grade (4) 89% = 8.9 toward overall grade • Project@ 25% of grade (1) 50% = 12.5 toward overall grade • Homework@ 10% of grade (20) 80% = 8.0 toward overall grade • Classwork@ 10% of grade (15) 95% = 9.5 toward overall grade • Participation@ 15% of grade 100% = 15 toward overall grade • Overall grade for term one = 76%

8. Traditional Grading; Example B Ms. Jones English Class….right next door to Ms. Smith…. • Tests and Quizzes = 50% of grade (7) = 89 (89 x .5 = 45) • Homework / classwork = 30% of grade (35) = 88 (88 x.35 = 31) • Participation = 10% of grade = 100 (100 x .10 = 10) • Project =10% of grade = 50 (50 x .10 = 5) • Overall grade is a 91 • What did you as a parent learn from this grading system about your child’s progress, strengths and weaknesses as a learner?

12. Competency based reporting

13. And about college acceptance….. • The #1 item colleges look at is the transcript. They first look at THE COURSES chosen in high school. (rigor matters) • The next thing many colleges look at is the SAT / ACT performance. This is declining, however. • The third thing is the recommendation letters from teachers. • Weighting is removed from GPA when reviewed by most colleges. • 3s an 4s easily equate to strong performance and the only grade on a transcript is a final grade. • More schools are looking at portfolios of performance, community engagement and leadership. Colleges indicate no hardship when looking at competency based report cards.

14. Academic Recognition…… • WE are working on it!!!