Why the Future of Assessment is Competency-Based

The following is a condensed version of my article titled "From Compliance to Competency."

For over a decade, the industrial-age model of schooling has prioritized compliance over competency and "seat time" over mastery. As I argue, maintaining these outdated systems is tantamount to instructional malpractice. We owe students a model that reflects how learning actually happens: nonlinearly, personally, and at varying paces.

The shift toward Standards-Based Assessment (SBA) and Competency-Based Education (CBE) isn't a trend; it's a necessary reckoning. To move from philosophy to district-wide practice, educators need a robust digital infrastructure. This is where Edsby Destinations comes in.

The Case for Change: Beyond the "B-Minus"

Traditional grading is fundamentally broken. A single letter grade often blends academic achievement with behavioral compliance, homework completion, and participation. This "number" obscures more than it reveals.

• SBA asks: Has the student demonstrated proficiency against specific standards?
• CBE ensures: Students advance upon mastery, not based on the calendar.

In a competency-based model, an early failure doesn't define a student’s final grade. Instead, the most recent, consistent demonstration of understanding counts. This culture builds resilient learners who chase mastery rather than points.

Empowering Student Agency

When students see exactly where they stand against defined outcomes, they can set goals and self-assess. Research shows that self-regulation increases significantly when students engage with clear success criteria. Outcomes-based reporting gives students a clear destination and the freedom to chart their own course toward it via portfolios, projects, and authentic artifacts, something my co-author and I emphasize in Personalize.

The Scaling Challenge: Why Infrastructure Matters

Many districts understand the "why" of CBE but struggle with the "how." Transitioning a large system to outcomes-based assessment generates a massive volume of data, including visual artifacts, self-assessments, and longitudinal observations, that traditional Gradebooks simply cannot handle.

Edsby Destinations was purpose-built to solve this complexity at scale. Unlike generic LMS tools that are retrofitted for standards, Edsby is engineered for the specific workflows of K-12 organizations.

Key Features of Edsby Destinations

• Visual Evidence of Learning: Capture photos, videos, and work products tagged directly to learning outcomes.
• Student-Centric Dashboards: Students receive a graphical overview of their journey, showing where they are and where they need to go in real-time.
• Co-Created Success Criteria: Teachers and students can collaborate on what "success" looks like, promoting ownership.
• Accessibility for All: Mobile apps with QR code logins remove barriers for younger learners, making "visible learning" possible in early elementary grades.
• District-Level Transparency: Dashboards provide administrators with a bird’s-eye view of progress across the entire system while allowing for "drill-down" views into individual student growth.

Engaging the Whole Community

Assessment is the primary touchpoint between schools and families. Edsby Destinations shifts the dinner-table conversation from "What grade did you get?" to "What did you learn?" By providing parents with real-time visibility into authentic work products rather than a static PDF report card, schools can build a true home-school partnership.

Leading the Transformation

Technology should serve pedagogy, not the other way around. The shift to standards-based assessment is a leadership challenge that requires a strategic mindset and the right tools. With Edsby Destinations, the vision of a competency-based future becomes an operational reality, honoring each student's individual path to mastery.

Be sure to read my full-length article titled "From Compliance to Competency."

Competencies for a Post-COVID World

It seems as of late that we are always in the midst of difficult times. As I am writing this post, the world is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases. The challenges that this is placing on society goes without saying.  In classrooms, educators continue to grapple with the impacts this is having on both remote and hybrid learning models. It's not easy, and many people are at a breaking point, but who could blame them.  The silver lining here is that we will get the pandemic under control at some point through more stringent social distancing requirements and a vaccine.

When the dust settles, we need to look carefully at critical lessons learned. The world of work has, and continues to, fundamentally change. There is a necessary shift emerging right before our eyes. More and more employers are moving away from physical spaces and embracing remote environments while providing greater levels of trust. What this equates to is less of a focus on the number of hours put into a day and more on getting the work done at a high level.

In my view, the future is bright, and these changes will be welcomed by many. The fact of the matter is that reporting to an office or being required to put in a set number of hours each day doesn't necessarily result in success. So, what does this mean for education? A greater emphasis on productivity in the future of work will require our learners to have a refined set of competencies. It is important not to get caught up in the hoopla about needed "skills." While these are important, they focus on the "what" in terms of the abilities a learner needs to perform a specific task or activity. Competencies outline "how" goals and objectives will be accomplished. They are more detailed and define the requirements for success in broader, more inclusive ways. In a previous post, I shared this:

Competencies, therefore, may incorporate a skill but are much more than the skill. They include a dynamic combination of abilities, attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge that is fundamental to the use of a skill aligned to a learning outcome. 

Now, and in the future, our learners will most likely need to be competent in the following areas to succeed.

• Self-regulation: Process by which people plan for a task, monitor performance, and reflect on the outcome.
• Remote collaboration: People work together, regardless of their geographic location, to achieve organizational goals using a variety of digital tools.
• Critical thinking and problem-solving: The ability to think in complex ways and apply knowledge and skills acquired in relevant ways. Even when confronted with perplexing unknowns, people are able to use extensive knowledge and skill to create solutions and take action that further develops their skills and knowledge.
• Emotional intelligence (EI) – A person's capacity to be aware of, control, express one's emotions and handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. A person who is competent in EI can understand, manage, and use their own emotions to communicate effectively, relieve stress, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict in positive ways.
• Time management: Process of organizing and planning how to divide the time you have available between specific activities or delegate tasks to others depending on organizational structure. In a nutshell, it's about working smarter, not harder, to achieve goals.
• Creativity – The ability to develop and successfully implement innovative ideas to develop solutions to complex problems while connecting seemingly unrelated phenomena.

It is essential for educators to develop their own sense of what is critical for learners going forward. The curriculum might dictate what has to be taught, but the art of teaching is all about how we teach in ways that inspire meaningful learning. As the world continues to change in ways that we could never have imagined, it is imperative that learners have what they need to succeed.

Competencies vs. Skills

The 21st Century skills discussion and debate has waged on even prior to the onset of this century.  The ensuing conversations have provided an opportunity for schools, districts, and organizations to critically evaluate what students need to know and be able to do in order to succeed in the new world of work.  As we have moved further into this century the number 21 has less of a meaning, but the skills are still important.  Thus, many educators, including myself, now refer to these as essential skills.  Over time they have evolved beyond just communication, collaboration, creativity, and global awareness to include entrepreneurship and emerging technological proficiency.

The other day I was speaking with Rose Else-Mitchell, a wickedly smart educational leader, who pushed my thinking on the whole skills conversation. As I was reviewing a talking point for a webinar that I was to facilitate later in the day, I brought up this image and discussed the skills that students needed to be critical thinkers in the 21st Century and beyond. After looking at what I had on the slide and listening to my analysis, she commented that I was (or should be) referencing and explaining competencies, not just skills, which students will need. This really got me thinking. 

As I reflected on her feedback I began to dive deeper into what the difference is between competencies and skills as well as their implications on learning.  Below is an image that until my conversation with Rose I would have just viewed as another catchy way to visualize digital skills that students (and adults) need. However, I am now more focused on how we can begin to address these as competencies to really prepare students for success in a disruptive world.

Image credit: www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/8-digital-skills-we-must-teach-our-children/

While skills are an important part of learning and career paths, they’re not rich or nuanced enough to guide students towards true mastery and success. Skills focus on the “what” in terms of the abilities a student needs to perform a specific task or activity. They don’t provide enough connection to the how. Competencies take this to the next level by translating skills into behaviors that demonstrate what has been learned and mastered in a competent fashion. In short, skills identify what the goal is to accomplish. 

Competencies outline "how" the goals and objectives will be accomplished. They are more detailed and define the requirements for success in broader, more inclusive terms than skills do. There is also an increased level of depth that takes into account skills, knowledge and abilities. To succeed in the new world of work, students will need to demonstrate the right mix of skills, knowledge, and on-the-job ability. A skill is a practical or cognitive demonstration of what a student can do. Competency is the proven use of skills, knowledge, and abilities to illustrate mastery of learning by solving problems. 

In order to really see the difference between a skill and competency I came across this great communication example provided by HRTMS. 

A person can become a good presenter through practice, learning from others, and education but in order to be a strong communicator one must rely on a combination of skills PLUS behavior and knowledge.  A person can learn how to be a good presenter but only a strong communicator has advanced language skills, the knowledge of diverse cultures, and behaves patiently when communicating.   In short, skills are specific learned activities like mopping the floor, using a computer, and stocking merchandise, while competencies are skills + knowledge  + behavior like problem solving, communication, or professionalism.

Competencies, therefore, may incorporate a skill, but are much more than the skill.  They include a dynamic combination of abilities, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as knowledge that is fundamental to the use of a skill aligned to a learning outcome. The Rigor/ Relevance Framework helps us move from a focus on skills to competency-based learning. The acquisition and application of diverse skills is foundational, but moving to Quad D requires the use of skills, knowledge, and abilities to illustrate cognitive growth and authenticity through solving real-world problems that are unpredictable in nature. 

Success in a digital world will rely on much more than skills.  It's time to shift our focus an energy on developing and assessing core and innovative competencies that will serve all students now and in the future.