"If our aim is to prepare students for the real world, we need to give them the real world every day." — Competency-Based Education by Rose L. Colby

In a personalized-competency based learning environment (PCBL) each learner is challenged and supported based on their learning progression. Learners meet the same common learning targets with the flexibility to determine how they demonstrate their learning. With the support of their teacher, learners co-create their experiences. Learners are encouraged to explore their interests and learn based on their strengths. PCBL develops the whole person, supporting each learner’s social, emotional, mental, and physical needs 

What is Competency Based Learning?

• Agency is honored by learners making important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning.

• Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields, timely, relevant, and actionable evidence.

• Learners receive timely, individualized support based on their unique learning needs.

• Learners progress based on evidence of competency, not seat time.

• Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing.

• Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy of schools and education systems.

• Rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measurable, and transferable.

*Adapted from Aurora Institute's Definition of Competency Based Learning.

How is personalized-competency based learning connected to our strategic framework?

PCBL is a framework that allows learners to be agents of their own learning: 

• Learners make choices based on their needs and learning progression.

• Learners provide evidence of progress on competencies to assess their level of learning. 

• Learners connect to their learning based on their strengths, interests, and spark.

• Learners become informed problem solvers able to reflect and revise throughout their learning experience.