Competency-based Education

The CPCS educational program is organized around a competency-based, outcome-oriented curriculum. Students progress through the curriculum by demonstrating their competence in a variety of skill and knowledge areas. A CPCS student who demonstrates a competency is showing the ability "to do" something -- to put knowledge and principles into practice.

The competency is the basic unit of academic credit at CPCS. Unlike other programs where students earn grades for each course they take, a student at CPCS earns "competency completions." Competencies are defined in competency statements. Each competency statement specifies the particular learning outcomes required. Students may demonstrate a competency through any of the CPCS learning options.

Sample competency statement:

Critical Inquiry

Rationale: For many of us, our formal education experiences have often been ones in which we were simply expected to absorb knowledge as it was presented by "experts." In this type of educational environment, learning is seen as a search for correct answers and texts are regarded as authoritative and not open to challenge. The role of the student is fairly passive-receiving and repeating back information.

In contrast, an active learning model places students at the center of the learning process. Rather than simply digesting information that is presented to them, students are encouraged to draw upon their own experiences and perceptions to better engage and interact with the information they are working with to form new understandings. In an active learning process students can use newly acquired understandings to reconsider their own views and in turn pose new questions. This approach to learning invites a deeper understanding both of new materials and of one's own ideas about a particular issue/topic. Through this dynamic interplay, the boundaries of learning are expanded beyond the passive acquisition of knowledge.

Active learning requires specific skills. Students need to be able to read a text carefully, closely, and critically in order to identify an author's perspective and voice, purpose in writing, main ideas, and underlying assumptions and biases. Students need to be able to formulate questions about the material they are reading that will enable them to deepen their understandings of the ideas/issues presented; draw connections between readings; compare perspectives; examine their own thinking; and challenge and/or integrate the views of the author in an informed way. Students also need to know how to develop strategies for further inquiry.

This competency is designed to help CPCS students acquire the foundation skills for becoming active learners. Acquisition of these skills will help students approach increasingly difficult material as they advance beyond the first level of the curriculum. It will also help prepare students to become lifelong learners.

Competency: Can plan and carry out a focused inquiry, including selecting a topic, posing questions for exploration, critically reading different texts, and using the information to gain new understanding and knowledge on a topic or issue.

1. Select an issue you are interested in learning about and explain your interest, knowledge and assumptions about it.
2. Select an aspect of the issue that you are particularly interested in learning more about. (This will be referred to in this competency statement as "the inquiry issue.")
3. Formulate a series of questions to explore the inquiry issue that you identified for study in criterion 2.
4. Select appropriate texts and critically read them to acquire information relevant to your inquiry.
5. Use the information gathered from the texts to develop answers to your inquiry questions and assess the usefulness of each selection in addressing the questions.
6. Compare texts in terms of how they advanced your understanding of the questions you posed.
7. Describe the ways in which your inquiry has impacted your original understandings or perspective on the topic.

Standards:

1. Student should select an appropriate topic among the Inquiry Seminar offerings. Criterion 1 should be addressed in a short essay in which you: discuss why you chose this issue and what interests you most about it; summarize what you already know about the issue; explain any assumptions/views that you bring to the study of this issue.
2. The selection should be made from a list of issues provided by the evaluator.
3. In demonstrating criterion 3, you should develop at least five questions to guide you in your inquiry.
4. For criterion 4, the texts should be selected from a set of materials provided by the evaluator, which may include firsthand accounts, media accounts, articles, books, web sites, etc. You should select the two that you think will be most useful to you in addressing the inquiry questions you have formulated. (tweaked language only; no change in meaning)
5. In demonstrating criteria 5 and 6, you should for each of the selected texts:
   1. describe the strategy you used to make sense of the text;
   2. summarize the main points the author is trying to make;
   3. identify the author's point of view;
   4. identify those sections of the text that correspond to the questions you have asked; and summarize the portions of the text that respond to your questions, making certain for each to identify the corresponding question.
   5. using information derived from the texts, to the best of your ability, answer the questions that you have posed ;
   6. identify any missing information.
6. In demonstrating criterion 6, write a short essay in which you compare the usefulness the texts to you in answering your inquiry questions. In making this comparison, you should think about the following kinds of questions:
   • Did either text seem more reliable than the other?
   • Did either author seem to have better support for his/her position?
   • Did either author use clearer or more accessible language than the other?
   • Did you feel more comfortable with the perspective of one author over the other?
7. Drawing on what you have learned so far from your inquiry, identify additional questions that you think would be useful in further exploration of your inquiry issue/topic.
8. Using the Internet, choose one additional text that you think will be most useful in helping you to answer these additional questions, and repeat the steps set out in standard 5; additionally, discuss how useful the text was in advancing your understanding of your inquiry issue/topic.
9. Write a concluding essay in which you:
   • summarize what you have learned about the inquiry issue/topic;
   • assess how useful the questions you formulated were in guiding your inquiry;
   • identify any additional questions that were suggested to you by your inquiry that you think would be useful in continued exploration of the inquiry issue/topic;
   • explain how your perspective on the inquiry issue/topic has been enhanced or changed by your inquiry.

A Learning Process That Works for Students

CPCS is committed to meeting students where they are, and helping them get where they want to be. Because the competency systems offers students different options for demonstrating competencies, students have more control in designing an educational plan that works for them within the curricular framework. As part of the entry process, students assess their accomplishments and learning needs to determine the support or leeway they need to get the education they want. Students at a certain level of accomplishment in their fields can build on what they already know to improve their effectiveness. Students who come to the College needing to bolster some of their foundational skills will find the support they need to do so through the competency-based curriculum.

Innovative and Exciting Ways to Learn

The College recognizes that there are many ways to learn and to develop and demonstrate competence. At CPCS students are encouraged to take advantage of a wide range of learning opportunities inside and outside of the classroom that suit their needs and interests.

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