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Distinguishing Between a Standards-Based and a Competency-Based Approach to Outcomes
Distinguishing Between a Standards-Based and a Competency-Based Approach to Outcomes
The first step in shifting to a Competency-Based approach is to identify your community’s desired learning outcomes, as they are the building blocks for the entire assessment structure. Instead of reporting a letter grade in Math based on an average of assignments completed, Competency-Based reporting will focus on a defined set of outcomes comprising skills, knowledge, and dispositions. Therefore, the entire design process must begin with defining those outcomes.
Systems typically take one of two approaches to outcomes:
Grade level and discipline-specific standards
Interdisciplinary and multi-level competencies
There is considerable nuance in every system’s outcomes. Outcomes may have some characteristics of a standard and some characteristics of competencies. At the end of this section, you will find a description of systems that have, to varying degrees, taken a more blended approach, using both types.
In their Getting Smart Article, Nate Mclennon and Rebecca Midles describe the difference as the granularity between the two. “Competencies are larger grain size compared to standards, and are transferable across multiple domains, supporting relevancy and use into the future” (McClennen & Midles, 2023).
The table above summarizes key distinctions between Standards-Based and Competency-Based approaches to outcomes, and therefore assessment, grading and reporting.
In addition to grain size, standards are defined at each specific grade level. Although skills such as determining the main idea present themselves in multiple grade levels in the ELA standards, they are defined as a grade-level specific standard that learners are expected to meet by the end of the year. However, competencies are skills that learners will continue to build over time, advancing level by level as they grow developmentally.
Standards are typically content area or discipline-specific, state-mandated, or provided by organizations such as NextGenScience. They are intended to be assessed by content area specialists, which in secondary schools usually occurs within a subject area course. In a Standards-Based approach, assessed outcomes generally include only content area or discipline-specific standards, sometimes with additional learning habits or behaviors such as following directions, submitting work on time, self-organization, and class participation. These behavioral skills are assessed separately from academic standards, which will be discussed in more detail in the Determine How to Summarize Progress section.
Competencies, while spanning discipline-specific skills in areas like math, science, and ELA, are considered more transferable and treated in an interdisciplinary manner. Even a competency that is considered more of a discipline specific skill, such as something around reading or writing, in a Competency-Based structure would be assessed in multiple contexts, not just a traditional ELA course. Competencies also include interdisciplinary skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, and SEL skills (ie. self-management and relationship building) that span all courses and extend beyond school walls. In a Competency-Based approach, learners constantly build evidence of their learning, regardless of where it happens.
These skills are also complicated to assess in the traditional sense. There is no test that will ever tell us how creative a learner is. To be clear, the goal of competency-based assessment, grading and reporting is not to rank and sort learners or say who is more creative than others. The goal is to define the observable skills that lead to larger outcomes such as creativity and be able to, with evidence, define levels of proficiency on those skills, ultimately to help learners understand the learning goal and where they are in relationship to that goal so they can know how to grow in various competencies.
In addition, it is not just the educator deciding how proficient in a skill a learner is. In a Competency-Based approach, anyone, including the learner themselves and other adults in the community, can assess learning or proficiency. According to Devin Vodicka in an article for Learner-Centered Leadership, these additional inputs are “important perspectives that can inform learning that we have been undervaluing in our assessment systems” (Vodicka, 2021). This works well in systems where learners spend significant time with mentors or in community internships. It also serves as a way to honor learning happening outside of the classroom in after-school programs or within the family.
Ultimately, one of the greatest distinctions is in how learning is organized.
Ultimately, one of the greatest distinctions is in how learning is organized.
A Standards-Based approach aligns well with systems where courses and instruction are designed around content area standards taught in silos. In secondary schools, each educator essentially owns their course gradebook and is responsible for assessing course standards along with a few behaviors or habits that typically get reported out separately. In elementary schools, although the same educator may be assessing all the different content-area standards, the key distinction in a Standards-Based approach is that the educator in that school year still owns or is responsible for that assessment. The learner starts over the next year with new standards, a new educator, and a new gradebook.
However, in a Competency-Based approach, the assessment stays with the learner from course to course and year to year. Growth is tracked along the same competencies over time, using continua or progressions. Ownership truly lies with the learner, and all educators or adults in their community share responsibility for providing feedback on learner progress towards learning outcomes.
One of the reasons a system may choose a more Competency-Based approach is that it more accurately measures a combination of academic and whole-learner outcomes in a world where learning happens anytime, anywhere. As Jonathan Martin writes in his book Reinventing Crediting for Competency-Based Education, “life isn’t lived inside narrow subject area disciplines, and truly challenging problems are rarely situated exclusively in the abstractions of a single class or course” (Martin, 2019, p.7)
You can read more about the differences between standards and competencies in this article by reDesign (2016).
To illustrate the difference, let's compare a Standards-Based proficiency scale to a Competency-Based progression.
To illustrate the difference, let's compare a Standards-Based proficiency scale to a Competency-Based progression.
Standards-Based
Standards-Based
Standard: RI.4.1-Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
This is a Proficiency Scale of a 4th grade ELA standard from Carbon County School District #2 (Manning, n.d.). Proficiency scales define the knowledge and skills that define 3-4 levels of achieving a standard and serve as a rubric for any work learners submit to show evidence of that standard. Typically, level 2 defines what the learner knows, including identifying simple vocabulary. Level 3 is defined as how learners apply and ultimately demonstrate proficiency of the standard as it is defined. The expectation is that learners work their way up the proficiency scale to achieve first a level 2, then a a level 3, defining proficiency, on the standard. They might have the opportunity to demonstrate the standard at a level 4 or switch to working on other grade-level standards. The key here is that each standard is vertically defined on levels 1-4. You can read more about the levels of proficiency here. In some systems, learners must demonstrate level 2 before level. In other systems, learners have the opportunity to demonstrate any level on the proficiency scale at any time.
Distinctly, in a Competency-Based approach, a competency such as the one here, Write Arguments, is further defined by one of its skills, Introduce Claim, then defined at 6 different levels that grow with learners over time. Year after year, learners in this system receive feedback on this same skill, growing in the levels over time. These levels are intentionally not aligned to specific grade levels to allow learners to work at their own developmental pace along what is typically called a continuum or progression. This is the approach of Building 21 in developing their competency framework.
The grain size is larger in this continuum than in the proficiency scale example shared above because the competency is defined horizontally, not vertically. It does not describe the steps a learner takes to achieve proficiency on a narrow grade-level standard. Instead, it describes developmental milestones over time, and learners can plot their current performance on those levels year after year. If a learner is not yet demonstrating all the indicators within a specific skill level, they are considered to be performing at the level below. Some systems use half levels to demonstrate that a learner is performing on some of the higher-level indicators but not all.
Ultimately, each system will need to decide on an approach to outcomes, focusing on content and grade-level specific standards, interdisciplinary competencies tracked over the K-12 experience or a hybrid of both.
The Layers of Outcomes
The Layers of Outcomes
Whether taking a Standards-Based or a Competency-Based approach to outcomes, there are typically many layers to an outcome framework.
Layers of Standards
Consider the familiar Common Core ELA standards, which include individual standards and substandards that fall into categories called clusters (in some frameworks called strands), domains, and subject areas.
With standards, teaching and learning typically happen at the standard or sub-standard level. Grading or scoring also happens at this level, with educators providing proficiency-level scores on the individual standards. However, reporting can be summarized at the cluster/strand, domain, or subject level by aggregating scores on individual standards within that category for a final score. How this happens is discussed more in the Determine How to Summarize Progress section, but it is important to mention here in the design process as well.
As systems design outcome frameworks, it is important to consider at what level each of the following happens:
Teaching, learning & assessment– the focus of day-to-day learning and the design of the opportunities for evidence (assessment)
Grading- providing proficiency scores and feedback
Reporting – what is shared on a Progress Report or Report Card
Layers of Competencies
The following is a competency from Embark Education:
In this competency, there are three layers: competencies, sub-skills, and indicators. Learners use the indicators as learning targets to guide their learning, so learning and feedback happens at this level. A score for a piece of evidence in Embark's LMS (Learning Management System) is provided at the subskill level. All of that is summarized and reported at the competency level.
Read more about this example here.
In the design process, it’s key for systems to think about these layers and the granularity with which they want to develop their outcome framework, which has implications for other design elements of the system, the design of learning experiences and implementation itself. Chris Sturgis explains this challenge in an article for Aurora Institute:
“This issue, of the granularity of performance indicators and learning targets, is one that is challenging the field as different perspectives ask for different levels of granularity. We could think of it as a Goldilocks problem – some are just too specific and others are too large. Different criteria or lenses such as student-friendliness (creating meaning), ability to assess, time spent on assessments, ability to identify and support students in mastering the skill, and ease in organizing into interdisciplinary, inquiry-based instruction all demand different levels of granularity” (Sturgis, 2016).
The key question when designing outcomes, whether standards or competencies, is to determine at what level each of the following will happen:
Teaching, learning & assessment– the focus of day-to-day learning and the design of the opportunities for evidence (assessment)
Grading- providing proficiency scores and feedback
Reporting – what is shared on a Progress Report or Report Card
Below are a variety of system’s approaches to layers of outcomes:
Below are a variety of system’s approaches to layers of outcomes:
Roseville Outcomes
Roseville Outcomes
Bostonia Global Outcomes
Bostonia Global Outcomes
Waukesha Outcomes
Waukesha Outcomes
Identifying Grade Level & Content or Course-Specific Standards
Identifying Grade Level & Content or Course-Specific Standards
When taking a Standards-Based approach for specific grade levels and content areas, it is important to define outcomes rather than simply adopting the entire list of state standards into account. This is important so educators, learners and families can prioritize time and energy on the most essential and transferable knowledge and skills. Systems have done this in a variety of ways. Guajome Charter Public Schools, Maine 207 High School (Messmer, n.d.), and Roseville City Middle Schools started slowly, with one department at a time defining outcomes. Guajome Charter Public Schools and Roseville City Schools started with the ELA department, whereas Maine 207 began with the math department. All 3 systems scaled to additional departments over multiple years.
In Roseville, and many other Standards-Based systems such as Mineola, they began by defining the priority standards, also known as essential or anchor standards. These are the key standards (or bundles of standards) that will be the focus of assessment, grading and reporting. While other standards are still addressed (taught), these priority standards are crucial for tracking progress and ensuring learners are developing at their grade level in that content area.
Explore the following profiles that have taken a Standards-Based approach to outcomes:
In addition to the schools highlighted above, the following districts have developed a fully robust Standards-Based assessment, grading and reporting structures that you can read more about below:
You can also find lists of essential standards and proficiency scales here:
Interdisciplinary and Multi-Level Competencies
Interdisciplinary and Multi-Level Competencies
Developing a framework of competencies involves the community deciding on the most important outcomes and defining them as measurable and observable competencies.
At Embark Education, educators and leaders collaborated to define the essential skills learners needed to achieve their Learner Profile goals, such as quantitative reasoning and collaboration. They further developed these larger competencies into subskills, with success defined by a list of indicators or specific learning targets that define middle school proficiency for each subskill.
Building 21 (n.d.) has developed a robust set of competencies spanning ELA skills, durable skills, and wayfinding skills. These competencies are broken down into skills, with proficiency defined at six levels or stages that show developmental progression over time. The Waukesha East school profile provides more details on this model in action.
Above is an example of an ELA area skill, introduce my claim, part of the Compose Evidence-Based Arguments MLT in Waukesha East.
reDesign’s (2024) recently released Future9 Competencies framework is similar to Building 21's, with skills defined by a developmental progression across six performance levels from novice to expert. These levels are defined by observable and measurable indicators of the skill in action.
At Learner-Centered Collaborative, we support schools and districts in designing Learner Portraits through a guiding coalition, a group of leaders, educators, teachers, learners, and community members. The broader outcomes, such as collaboration and global citizenship, are developed into observable and measurable competencies, with proficiency defined at different developmental levels, typically by grade level bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12).
The competency, Critically Research, above is from Learner-Centered Collaborative who works with communities to design Learner Portrait frameworks including competencies and multi-level progressions. Learn more here.
One Stone and their high school, Lab51, have developed a set of competencies they refer to as Bold Learning Objectives (BLOB for short) that make up their Growth Framework (n.d. - a). These interdisciplinary competencies, organized into four quadrants (mindset, knowledge, creativity, skills), are further defined by Growth Indicators written to demonstrate adolescent level and beyond proficiency. Their Growth Progression will be discussed more in the Define Levels of Proficiency section, and the Bostonia Global school profile shows their model in action.
Explore the following profiles that have taken a Competency-Based approach to outcomes:
A Blend: Choosing Both Standards and Competencies
A Blend: Choosing Both Standards and Competencies
There are many systems that are not yet ready to move beyond grade level and content-area specific standards but are also looking to define and measure whole-learner outcomes. Many of these outcomes take the form of a Learner Portrait or what’s often called a Portrait of a Graduate. There are a variety of approaches that systems take to blend the use of standards and Competency-Based outcomes:
Supplemental Reporting: Many systems, whether traditionally graded or leveraging a Standards-Based grading system will do supplemental reporting on these whole-learner outcomes using badges, portfolios and addendums to Report Cards
Assess, Grade and Report on Both Standards and Competencies: Others, however, have taken an approach to assess, grade and report on both types of outcomes. You will find this approach with Surrey Schools and Ephrata Area Schools.
Define hybrid outcomes: Some systems take the approach of defining interdisciplinary outcomes by course or take discrete standards and define them at a higher grain size. This hybrid approach makes their outcomes fit some elements of standards and competencies, creating hybrid outcomes, typically used in specific courses. At Edge, in Liberty Public Schools, each course defined their specific course outcomes, which live at a higher grain size than most standards, and documented them in the learner handbook for clarity of expectations (Liberty Edge, 2021). This was also the approach taken at The Young Women’s Leadership School who have developed a Mastery Handbook (n.d.), that outlines how educators should develop course outcomes from a shared set of competencies. Then educators develop and what they call outcome targets, or learning targets, and map those outcomes across all the units in their course.
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