This post, MARCHING TOWARDS COMPETENCY: Competency Based Learning: Instruction that Matches the Needs of Each Student, was originally published in SEEN Magazine and reprinted with permission.
In theory, the choice is simple. Continue to implement a time-bound; age-based; one-size-fits-all curriculum-driven instructional model that has not served us well for many decades.
This fall, after getting to know each other in online video exchanges, some Ugandan high school students told a group of students in New Orleans that most Ugandans have no reliable electricity and use candles or lanterns after dark. Over the following weeks, the students worked together to build solar-powered lights. An education technology startup called Level Up Village supplied both schools with solar cells, batteries and LEDs, along with 3-D printers to fabricate the housings, tutorials on electricity and computer-aided design, and an online workspace for posting notes and swapping ideas.
Online education will grow up by scaling down. In spite of the practical and theoretical possibilities of e-learning, the very qualities that have enabled massive open online courses (or MOOCs) to serve prodigious numbers of learners—machine-graded assessment, prescriptive course design, and self-paced enrollment—have also tend to promote antiquated pedagogy, curtail student engagement, and preclude a sense of cohort. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Cengage Learning Expands Institutional Business with Learning Objects’ Customizable Platform and Services for Online Programs; Acquisition Confirms Cengage Learning’s Position as an Integrated Digital Solutions Company
Lord James Knight, formerly the Minister for Education in England and current Managing Director of Online Learning at TSL Education, took time to answer questions about the state of online and blended learning in education across the globe. Lord Knight’s response to my last question about the future and expanse of online learning speaks,