What counts as “traditional” when traditions are changing?
Every once in a while you come across a bold policy with a research base that is vague, problematic, or even obsolete. Here’s a prime […]
Nov 21, 2013
Author: juliaf
Technology tools lag our competency-based aspirations
Last week I wrote about structural barriers inhibiting competency-based education from taking off, even when policy shifts away from seat-time requirements to welcome innovation. In […]
Nov 13, 2013
Barriers to competency-based innovation aren’t just coming from above
There is a clarion call from online-learning proponents to free up student time—literally. As Susan Patrick explained in her opening speech at the annual iNACOL […]
Nov 6, 2013
Is guidance counseling being disrupted?
At this year’s iNACOL Symposium, most of the sessions I’ve attended so far have addressed two distinct sides of the student experience: social-emotional development and […]
Oct 30, 2013
How apps are (re)shaping our lives
Howard Gardner and Katie Davis’ new book, The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World (Yale University Press), […]
Oct 23, 2013
Unpacking competency recovery
In New Hampshire—the only state thus far to eliminate the Carnegie Unit and mandate competency-based education statewide—high schools are embracing competency recovery. Competency recovery is, […]
Oct 9, 2013
Personalization without isolation
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting a competency-based high school called Boston Day and Evening Academy (BDEA) in Roxbury, Mass. A number of […]
Oct 2, 2013
Disruptive innovation: Advancing equality in Advanced Placement?
Disruptive innovations often take hold in areas of nonconsumption—situations in which the alternative to using a new method or product is nothing at all. Although […]
Sept 25, 2013
Competency-based education and blended learning: Worlds apart or just two sides of the personalization coin?
At the Clayton Christensen Institute, we often talk about blended learning and competency-based education in the same breath. That’s because we see both as necessary […]
Sept 18, 2013
Performance-based funding: You get what you pay for
As we see the growth of virtual school options, I anticipate that more states will contemplate performance-based funding schemes. Michael Horn noted this trend in […]
Sept 11, 2013