Students choose their own path!
Students work at their own pace!
These are both aspirational statements associated with competency-based learning. The idea is that in a true personalized learning environment, students have the agency to both decide what they study and the pace at which they study it.
These statements help capture the student-centered vision at the heart competency-based learning. But they can also be problematic. Such statements suggest that the correlation between student agency and learning outcomes has no limitations or diminishing returns. In other words, more student agency always equals more learning. I don’t entirely subscribe to that belief. Yes, there are experimental schools like Sudbury Valley and other “democracy schools” that are testing these beliefs at the extreme. Most classrooms, however, do face very real constrains on both the path and pace of student learning. Publically adopted standards, graduation requirements, and standardized assessments all mediate the relative freedom of teachers and students to chart their own path.
A couple years ago, I made the journey up to Lindsay Unified in Central California. Despite its relatively small size, Lindsay has a well-known reputation as the school district that did away with grades in favor of a competency-based model. Lindsay provides a fascinating study in the power of leadership longetivity and vision to transform a traditional school system. They’ve been at it for a long time.
Some of the “old-timer” staff who had been there awhile told me that in the early days of the transformation, there was a lot of proselytizing about creating a learning environment where students could exercise broad control over both the path and pace of learning. Certainly, some students thrived, pushing themselves to accelerate learning and master content. Others, however, struggled to find their footing, falling behind what would be considered typical grade level work. The idea of students moving at their own pace is a little less appealing when the pace of learning slows – sometimes dramatically.
Over time, a different motto has emerged in Lindsay: “teacher pace or faster.” It’s a statement that brings the adults into the conversation as a source of high expectations for student learning. It’s recognizes that some young people can greatly benefit from thoughtful structure and encouragement. While it may be controversial to spoil what some consider the purity of student agency, in practice, I’ve found that adult educators play an essential role in supporting high levels of student learning.
At Advanced Learning Academy in Santa Ana, I recently saw firsthand what “teacher pace or faster” looks like. In middle grade math class, the teacher launches each day with a mini-lesson focusing on a new skill that is on pace with grade level standards. Once completed, students are free to move to application and practice problems that match their own level of competency. Over 50% of the class is moving at the teacher’s pace, relying on the daily mini-lesson and correlated activities. Other students, however, accelerate forward, and use the mini-lesson as a brief review time as they work ahead of the teacher pace. The carefully curated system of assessments allows students to test their learning wherever they find themselves within the curriculum – with meaningful feedback on performance.
Some students in the class have accelerated to the point that the teacher recommends them to move up to the next competency level – a different class. Unlike missing an entire set of skills as can often be the case for students who skip a class, students in a true competency-based learning environment have had the opportunity to accelerate through the requisite skills at each level.