What is Competency-Based Education?

The Traditional Education Model

Many institutions have a traditional credit-by-hour model that is usually course-based.  This means that you take the course and fulfill a certain number of hours in order to get credits.  You are often graded based on different assessments and homework given by the course instructor in this kind of model, and you go through a standardized set of courses and hours in order to complete the program.  You graduate if you have taken all the required courses, fulfilled all the needed credit hours, and successfully passed most of the instructors assessments.

The problem than can occur with this approach is that the end result is not necessarily guaranteed, and that it treats all of the students as if they were the same.  I'm sure many of us have experienced this kind of training model and have seen how different students can have different results, even though they went through the same program together.  Ultimately, this approach does not take the uniqueness of each student into consideration, and values the "input", the courses and the content itself, over the "output", or what the student is now able to do and implement once they finish.   Everyone comes in one end and gets pumped out the other, taking the exact same program and content, almost like a manufacturing line, with the expectation being that the end "product" will be the same for everyone.  The problem is... people are not products.

Competency-Based Education

Competency-based education flips this traditional model on its head.  Instead of the focus being on the courses and the content, the focus is on the end result.  What does the student walk away with?  With this in mind, it doesn't matter what courses the student takes in order to achieve the end result... or how long it takes for the student to get there... all that matters is that the student gets there!

Suddenly, the students experience is completely customized to them and their actual needs.  The program only takes as long as it needs to for each person or community, and every student doesn't need to go through the same courses and content if they don't need to.  Some people might already be experienced, or "competent", in some areas and they can move on immediately to what they need to become competent in.  Some people might be starting from the beginning, and so they will need more courses and content to help them become competent in more areas.

This is the center of competency-based education:  You determine the outcomes, the goals, or the "competencies" of what you want for your students to be able to do, understand, or value when they graduate.  From there, you develop the courses and the training components needed to help them get there.  This is our developmental approach to the firestarters Academy as we believe it helps us to fulfill all of our goals and is the best experience possible for those going through our training.