See the paper Art and Science of Designing Competencies for a full discussion. The materials here are resources referenced in or related to the paper. If you are new to competency education, please review the working definition before this section. (Please note: This page was developed in 2012 and has not been updated.)

1) What is a competency?  
Competencies are the knowledge, skills, and/or behaviors students must master in a specific content or performance area - Kim Carter, Q.E.D. Foundation

• Read Rose Colby's posts Is a Standard a Competency? (Part 1) and (Part 2).
• Attached is a powerpoint from Rose Colby that helps frames competencies and assessments

2) What makes a well-designed competency? (See Kim Carter's presentation from VSS attached)

• A competency describes knowledge and skills that can be applied to novel, complex situations.
• The skills described in a competency will be valuable ten years from now even if the content knowledge has changed.
• Learning objectives are accompanied by clear performance criteria that help students identify their performance level(s) and what they need to do to improve.
• Learning objectives are accompanied by effective rubrics that help students understand themselves better as learners.
• The competency and the learning objectives allow for personalization and opportunities for deeper learning.

Below are links to examples of competencies and learning objectives. States, districts and schools are exploring a variety of way of designing competency frameworks that include levels of knowledge, learning targets and rubrics. There has not been an analysis of the different ways of organizing competency frameworks or the implications of the different way they are being designed.

• Discussion and examples of measurement topics from RSU2 in Maine.
• New Hampshire's Statewide College and Career Ready Competencies -- for ELA and Mathematics
• Rubric used in Algebra module at the wiki page for Boston Day and Evening Academy. You can also find their The Habits of Mind, examples of the Individual Learning Plans for math, science and humanities including a list of all the benchmarks, the rubric used for end of course and translation into grades and a syllabus, assessment and rubric for the Algebra C module. There is also the syllabus for Algebra E to give a feeling for how the course is modularized.
• Example of Algebra and lots more resources from Diploma Plus
• Adams 50 shares loads of resources including their competencies (they refer to it as standards-based education)
• You can see how competencies are used to drive student learning at MC2's digital portfolio site. 
• Virtual Learning Academy now offers competency recovery -- you can view how they have organized their competencies
• Here is a video that focuses more on designing learning objectives referring to SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound).   
• Highland Tech, Alaska

3) What can we do to prepare for designing competencies?

A. Essentials of the Discipline (other resources on this that talks about essentials for math, science, ELA, etc)

• Essential Questions
• Reading Like a Historian -- Check out the Historical Skills Chart in Unit 1

 
B. Rooted in the Condition of Industry

•      ACE Leadership High School and its new Health Industry school.You can also read more about ACE at Connected by 25

C. Knowledge Frameworks

• Webb's Depth of Knowledge (and here are some materials from Tennessee)
• Bloom's Taxonomy and the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy
• Marzano and Kendall New Taxonomy on Educational Objectives
• Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Using Cognitive Rigor Matrix
• Article Cognitive Rigor: Blending the Strengthsof Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge to Enhance Classroom-level Processes
• (Click here and go to page 20. ). The Center for Assessment can be helpful as well.
• This presentation does a quick review on all three knowledge frameworks (see page 11)

D. Habits of Work/Lifelong Learning Competencies   

• Check out the rubrics for habits of mind at Q.E.D. Foundation's wiki
• Boston Day and Evening Academy
• New Hampshire's Dispositions (attached)

 
E. Learning Progressions

• How Students Learn series from the National Academy Press
•  Learning Progressions: Supporting Instruction and Formative Assessment by Margaret Heritage
• Bror Saxberg's post What the Learning Sciences Tell Us About Competency Education

4) What process should be used to design competencies?

A. Getting Started

• Read about Boston Day and Evening Academy's Process here.
• Julie Young shares how Florida Virtual Charter School designs competencies. They have shared resources as well here.

B. Using an Interdisciplinary Approach

• If you are interested in interdisciplinary learning,  Kim Carter recommends Heidi Hayes Jacobs’s “Interdisciplinary Curriculum” for further exploration of this topic.

C. Professional Development

• School Reform Initiative.