Dr. "TKA" Kulla-Abbott's List: 21st Century Celebrating Achievement & Success

Defeat is a part of life. Yet surely so is victory.
Perhaps nowhere more readily can we see the ups and downs of life than in sports, where you and your team are always measured by the last game you played.

Competency Education in a K-16+ World
by Jonathan VanderEls • November 24, 2014 • 1 Comment

It was a typical Wednesday evening in mid-October at our home. My wife and I were sitting on our couch.  She was correcting papers, and I was doing some work on my laptop for school the next day. My wife suddenly exclaimed out loud, but somewhat to herself, “Wow, she’s already completed my course.” It was approximately half-way through the college semester, and a student had demonstrated mastery in all requirements for her course, and had “completed” everything that was assigned.

My wife is a math teacher at the Thompson School at the University of New Hampshire. One of the courses she teaches is a hybrid section of College Algebra that combines an online component with in-person class sessions to assist students with specific topics. Five years ago when my K-12 district, the Sanborn Regional School District in New Hampshire, started implementing competency-based education, I attempted (unsuccessfully at the time) to explain to my wife why competency-based education was superior to the traditional model of education. She was not the least bit impressed, and provided many rebukes to my attempts at convincing her.