Dive Brief:
- After opening in 2013, California's Del Lago Academy created a competency-based assessment approach, Competency X, which allows students to collect badges to prove their skills to colleges and prospective employers.
- Alec Barron, principal investigator for Competency X and an educator at the academy, writes for eSchool News that the badges are all co-created with teachers, students and partners in industry and higher education to ensure they apply to the most important and sought after skills and are updated as necessary.
- Each badge comes with a hypothetical learning progression a student could take to reach it, and over time students curate a portfolio, providing evidence they have mastered certain skills along the way and offering an alternative to traditional summative assessments that schools more often use to gauge student progress.
Dive Insight:
Competency-based education is taking off at the post-secondary level as schools recognize the value in measuring student progress based on actual learning outcomes, rather than the time they spend in classes. Just like at Del Lago Academy, colleges and universities use digital badges to provide proof of specific skills, helping students develop a competitive edge with prospective employers.
As high schools take greater responsibility for preparing students for college and career, digital badges and portfolios are a good way to help students be more reflective about learning — a first step to being able to talk about it in college and job interviews. Portfolios also play a major role in The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success's new college application, which encourages students to think about college early.
