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The sticky note on the 4^th grader’s math work shares her thoughts on what she needs to practice. The class is working on problem-solving – one of four math competencies. Student and teacher discuss choices and align on a plan for her personalized learning time. With each opportunity to practice she gets closer to proficiency.

Competency-based learning is an education-y mouthful of words for an approach to learning coming to life in real ways for Spring Lake Park Schools’ students. At its heart, competency-based learning is focused on developing each student’s knowledge and skills to gain proficiency versus simply covering a subject for a defined period to fulfill a requirement.

“Ultimately, we want students to be able to successfully apply what they know in real situations,” says Melissa Olson, director of curriculum and instructional practices. “That requires a level of proficiency in the core concepts of each content area. The path to proficiency is personal and a competency-based learning supports the learner on their path.”

A helpful analogy is learning to drive a car, something everyone learns at their own pace. At the beginning, students learn concepts in a classroom. Then, they practice with supervision and feedback. Eventually, they show what they know to earn a driver’s license. Competency-based learning follows a similar process for a variety of academic and career and life skills.

The basics

There are two types of competencies. Academic competencies are aligned to different academic subject areas and to Minnesota state standards for areas like math and science. Career and life competencies are skills and mindsets needed for success in school and beyond like communication and collaboration.

“Competencies are clear goals that represent the most critical and enduring concepts from each content area and the skills and mindsets needed to be successful,” says Melissa.

There are 4-8 competencies in each content area. Competencies are consistent from kindergarten through grade 12 and grow in complexity. There are descriptions of what the learning looks like when a student is beginning to grasp the concept, when learning is in progress and when a student is proficient. These descriptions are embedded in a tool teachers use, called a rubric, to determine where students are in their learning.

“Learning is supported to provide flexibility for students to take more time on things they find difficult and go faster through things they understand quickly,” says Melissa. “And students show their learning along the way. Through tests, projects, or other applications of their skills, they produce examples that show what they know.”

While competencies are being embedded in learning throughout the K-12 experience, it’s at the elementary level where the addition of academic competencies will be most visible this year for content areas like Language Arts, Math and Science.

Personalized to each student

Competency-based learning is – above everything – personalized to the learner. It is one of four components of Spring Lake Park Schools’ approach to personalized learning.

“Personalization is important because concepts build on one another. When the plan and pace of learning is one size fits all and a student doesn’t grasp a concept on that timeline, they move forward with a gap,” says Melissa. “With this approach, we want to see a level of proficiency before we move to the next concept to help prevent gaps that can impact students down the road.”

Alyssa Olson and Lissa Golanowski have witnessed learning gaps in their classroom of fifth and sixth graders.

“What we did in the past is we leveled. We would take assessment results and say – here’s where you’re falling and line that up with a reading level,” says Alyssa. “The competencies and the learning progressions [the specific steps in learning toward the competency] that support them are much more descriptive of where students are at with specific skills.”

The approach recognizes the complexity of learning and the uniqueness of the learner.

“We have a student whose listening comprehension level is phenomenal but his fluency to read a fifth-grade passage is not there. It takes a long time to read a paragraph,” says Lissa. “With the competencies, we can see he’s comprehending at a high level but his fluency is at a lower level and impacting his learning. Knowing that, we can identify a next step.”

Catie Russell works with fourth graders and also appreciates how this model of learning is personalized to the student.

“I'm really liking how this approach meets students where they're at instead of – ‘This is the 4th grade standard. This the 4th grade lesson today, and this is the 4^th grade lesson tomorrow, and next week . . . ,” says Catie. “Some of my kids are working at a second grade or fifth grade level for specific competencies. We can work together to decide what they each need next.”

To help support the co-creation of next steps in learning, Catie is implementing a lot of self-reflection and choice during personalized learning time.

“I believe self-assessment is a great skill. How school has gone in the past, there are gaps for students, and it's hard for teachers to identify the gaps in every single student,” she says. “If students can try to identify it in themselves and then we provide choices and support to practice and learn, I think that is so helpful. I think we can reach more kids that way.”

Catie sees how self-assessment also helps motivate students internally. It lays the foundation for self-direction and ownership of learning that her fourth graders are ready for.

“It’s not just me saying – ‘well, you got this wrong on the test and you're getting a bad score,’” she says. “I don't really care about the scores. I care if you grew and if you apply yourself. That’s life. I tell them all the time – ‘I don't expect you to be perfect. That's not realistic. There are things I need to work on still as a reader….and I’m a lot older than you!’”

With their students, Alyssa and Lissa now feel like they now have the tools to really assess where specific gaps are and determine the best next steps in learning.

“That's what I love about this model. A kid can't get by with a gap like they have for too long,” says Lissa. “We're really trying to narrow that gap down in this group so when we send them to middle school we know exactly where they are at now and they can go forward from there with some success.”

Depth, ownership, connections

The consistency of the competencies from kindergarten through 12^th grade helps support depth in learning. Students see and hear the same language over and over again.

Des Gillis is teaching science to kindergarten through fourth graders. At these grade levels, she’ll facilitate learning for three out of the five science competencies: systems and structures, patterns and cause and effect.

“We’re all learning the concepts through scientific phenomenon,” she says. “I may tell them this is a pattern in kindergarten. It becomes them recognizing patterns when we're discussing a specific phenomena as third and fourth graders. While the overarching theme is there for everyone, there's more of that complexity that starts to build.”

Des already sees students making connections within the science competencies and examples of increased depth in learning.

“The third grade was looking at the mayfly and its life cycle,” she says. “Instantly, they were asking why the mayfly only lives 24 hours but then this tree lives 300 years. They're starting to see the pattern of the life cycle in the system and structure.”

There also is so much potential for making connections between subject areas. This is exciting for teachers as they anticipate how those connections engage students’ individual passions and interests and provide opportunities for deeper learning.

“When we work on patterns in science, we can also talk about what this looks like in math – mathematical patterns,” says Des. “Or, what a pattern looks like in nature. When we look at snowflakes, we are seeing a symmetrical pattern. Making connections as we move through units, we can deepen learning across content areas.”

Showing the learning

Similar to the practice needed to learn to drive a car, each competency at each grade level requires practice to reach proficiency. The work students produce shows what they know and where they are in their learning.

“At the end of every one of these concepts, we will have a project” says Des. “Students will choose how they go about it. We’ll have an overall theme for the phenomena but then how they show the learning can be different.”

Because modeling is big in science, Des plans to offer a lot of options for showing the learning.

“Kids will be able to draw on iPads or on paper, build with Playdough, use Legos - all of those,” she says. “I want them to find those ways to own the final product and throughout we're doing different things for them to really grasp the concepts.”

Catie’s students will have multiple pieces of data to show their understanding of math concepts.

She plans to hand out blank Tetris-like blocks for each learning step within a competency for each student in her room. Students will color in the blocks when they have three examples of work that shows their learning for that topic.

“When it comes to them making choices on what to work on, they’ll be able to clearly see which topics have gaps and need more practice,” she says. “They love setting the goals so I feel like they will like being able to see – ‘I have a gap in addition. . . I'm going to go work on that.’”

Even at Kindergarten, teachers like Katrina McCarthy, are thinking about ways for students to see and own their learning.

“We are thinking about using a visual like a caterpillar with circles and how every caterpillar is at a different place even if we are all learning the same things,” says Katrina. 

More information for families

The transparency to learning goals and progress isn’t just for students and teachers, but for families. Families will see much more information than they traditionally have on a report card.

“It will give parents an understanding of where their child is at in each area of learning, what has been learned and what the next steps are in the process,” says Katrina.

The amount of information and level of specificity is important for Lissa and Alyssa. For the students they work with, the messaging home hasn’t always been positive or helpful. The progress reporting with competency-based learning changes all of that.

Many of our students were at minimal progress for years on the report card. All parents heard was - my student is failing - but no explanation as to why or what the next step was. Now, we can really be specific on what we're zeroing in on because the competencies really pick apart what they CAN do now not just what they can't. Alyssa Olson, 5th grade teacher

Competency-based learning is one of the four core components of personalized learning at Spring Lake Park Schools.