Friday, June 20, 2014

How competency is changing mainstream education - Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

I tend to see competency-based courses/alternative credentialing like solar energy: They both sprang from urgent need; they are practical, yet challenge the status quo; and both were technically around long before now. Like solar energy that was developed earlier than you might have thought, competency-based learning was essentially the apprenticeship of the late middle ages. In apprenticeship, a new generation of practitioners are trained in competencies through a set of skills towards a career. As today’s students and higher education institutions realize that the need for competency-based learning is becoming critical—thanks to student loan debts and lack of trained professionals in scientific and skill-based careers—mainstream education, just like the energy industry, is fundamentally changing. http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/competency-changing-education-358/