Deeper Competency-Based Learning: Making Equitable, Student-Centered, Sustainable Shifts

Karin Hess, author of the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix, is a former classroom teacher and school administrator with over 40 years of deep experience in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Dr. Hess is recognized internationally as a leader in developing practical approaches for using cognitive rigor, depth of knowledge, and learning progressions as the foundation for curriculum design and assessments at all levels of assessment systems, from developing local assessment systems to state-level grade-level standards and test specifications for large-scale state assessments. Over the years, she has contributed to Maine’s early thinking about how to structure requirements for assessing high school graduation exhibitions and has provided technical assistance to Science Exemplars in the development and annotation of K-8 science performance tasks (www.exemplars.com), to the Center for Collaborative Education’s Quality Performance Assessment (QPA) initiative, and to Benchmark Education’s Ready to Advance curriculum for Pre-K, using learning progressions in curriculum and assessment design. Her most recent publications include a chapter in the second edition of Fundamentals of Literacy Instruction and Assessment, Pre-K–6 (Hougen & Smartt, Eds., Paul Brookes Publishing, 2020) and A Local Assessment Toolkit to Promote Deeper Learning: Transforming Research into Practice (Corwin, 2018). Karin’s ongoing CBE work has included guiding the development and implementation of New Hampshire’s K–12 Model Competencies and supporting school districts throughout the United States in creating and analyzing the effective use of performance scales and high-quality performance assessments for competency-based learning.

Rose Colby is a nationally recognized Competency-Based Learning and Assessment Specialist, assisting schools in designing high quality competency, assessment, and grading reform systems in many states.  She is a Talent Cloud Fellow for 2Revolutions, an education design firm.  She is a member of the national Advisory Board and contributor to CompetencyWorks, the national clearinghouse and resource for innovative practices in competency education.  She has served as Competency Education Consultant for the N.H. Department of Education supporting school districts as they develop their competency education systems and in designing and supporting the new state accountability pilot system, the New Hampshire Performance Assessment for Competency Education (NH PACE).  She is an Adjunct Professor at Southern New Hampshire University in the Masters/CAGS program in Competency Education. Rose is the author of two books on Competency Education: Competency-Based Education:  A New Architecture for K-12 Schooling (Harvard Education Press, 2017) and Off the Clock: Moving Education from Time to Competency (Corwin, 2012.) 

Daniel Joseph is the founder of CBE Solutions, an organization that supports districts in the strategic transformational shift from traditional, time-based education to personalized competency-based systems of teaching and learning.  Promoting systems level change, by engaging shareholders, building capacity through continuous improvement and aligned intentional instruction. Daniel strives to provide the knowledge, tools and processes to promote the depth of change needed to realize the vision of learning for all students.  Daniel’s practical experience in the arenas of public will, policy, and practice provide direction to schools working towards sustained growth and progress. His involvement with a state level task force in the State of Maine, “Proficiency Based Diploma- Strategic Task Force” provided support for the systemic change in both practice and policy.  In addition to state level engagement, Daniel also was the representative and building based leader for his school district which was part of the (ILN) Innovation Lab Network, CCSSO. Prior to founding CBE Solutions, he supported districts across the country in developing personal mastery systems of learning for Marzano Research and Reinventing School Coalition. Daniel teaches graduate level courses as an adjunct faculty member at Southern New Hampshire University and Saint Joseph’s College of Maine.