Competency Education: The Next Great Disruptor in Education | Connected Principals

Competency Education: The Next Great Disruptor in Education | Connected Principals:

Competency Education: The Next Great Disruptor in Education

by Brian Stack • July 1, 2014 • 0 Comments

At a summit hosted by the Bainbridge Consulting firm in San Diego last week, research fellow Thomas Arnett of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation talked about the power of disruptors in shaping our future world. Borrowing an example from the auto industry, Arnett talked about the rise to power of the Korean-born Kia Corporation. Introduced to the American market in the 1970’s, Kia cars quickly developed an undesirable reputation as being cheap and poorly fabricated. Fast forward some twenty five years later and Kia has stayed focused on building high quality cars at affordable prices. Over the years their products have gotten better, and as we move into 2015 it is expected that Kia car sales will be one of the highest of any auto manufacturers in the American market. Similar to the Lexus Corporation that recently overtook Mercedes in the luxury-car class industry, the Kia Corporation has been a disruptor in its industry because it has found a way to produce a better product more efficiently and at a lower cost to the consumer.

Bainbridge organized last week’s Disruptors in Education Summit in an effort to engage some of the industry’s most visionary entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, policy experts, and practitioners in meaningful dialog around key disruptive trends impacting K-12 and higher education in 2014 and in the future. The summit focused on the future of post-secondary education, blended learning, gaming in learning and assessment, MOOCs and badges, and the rise of competency-based learning. It was the last topic on competency education, however, that drew some of the biggest interest and excitement among those in attendance.

Competency education is born out of the idea that secondary and higher education schools cannot be confined by the limitations of “seat time” and the Carnegie Unit (credit hours) when organizing how students will progress through their learning. In a competency education model learning is organized by competencies – a student’s ability to transfer Competency Education: The Next Great Disruptor in Education | Connected Principals: