Competency-Based Education (CBE) programs are notably filling the degree-completer gap for non-traditional students in higher education. This session will explore the pros and cons of developing and sustaining CBE programs as well as offer advice for leaders at institutions considering a CBE program in the near future.
Competency-Based Education (CBE): A Fresh Look at a Viable Option for Degree-Completers
Competency-Based Education (CBE) has moved to the forefront as an affordable, online option in higher education for non-traditional students (Rivers, Gibson, Contreras, Livingston, Hanson, 2019; American Institutes for Research, 2018) answering the call from stakeholders and organizations to provide such services (i.e. OLC 2016) Tenants of CBE programs include rolling start dates, attention to “competencies” rather than “courses,” and “substantive interaction” around performance-based assessments to provide evidence of competence.
Some brick and mortar institutions of higher education have incorporated CBE programs within their auspices under special accreditation circumstances (I.e. experimental programs in SASCOC). Given the rise in popularity and the major paradigm differences in CBE programs, how do brick and mortar institutions flex in order to meet the demand, yet maintain academic rigor?
Three areas inform a conversation about CBE programs:
a. Definition of CBE (including structures of CBE programs)
b. Examples of how they are created with campus participation (including identification and assessment of competencies)
c. The Future of CBE (including innovative directions for the future of CBE in higher education).
This presentation will describe all three areas and provide a landscape view of the CBE ecosystem in higher education settings.
American Institutes of Research ( 2018). State of the field: Postsecondary CBE in the US. Retrieved from https://cberesearch.org/sites/default/files/2018-09/NSPCBE-2018-Infographic.pdf
OLC, (2016). The Changing Face of Higher Education. (2016) A Higher Education Act (HEA) for the 21st Century Learner. Online Learning Consortium. Retrieved from https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/OLC-Higher-Education-Online-Learning-Statistics.pdf
Rivers, C., Gibson, S., Contreras, E., Livingston, T., Hanson, P., (2019) Comptenecy-based education: An evolutionary higher education business model. The Journal of Competency-Based Education, 4, 1. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cbe2.1179