Breaking With Tradition. Brian M. Stack

to become crystal clear about how to help each student attain growth in demonstrating the competencies.

      Transparency is crucial in any system, and schools and districts that successfully navigate this change process openly acknowledge areas of progress and areas in which progress has proven difficult. There will be times of celebration, but there will also be times when the trajectory may need to change. Leaders must recognize and act during these times. If leaders believe strongly that what they are doing is best for students and their school, then they must be willing to communicate in an honest and forthright manner. This makes parents aware of the progress (or lack of progress) being made as a school and begins to develop the trust necessary for the community to work hand in hand with the school.

The Four Critical Questions of a PLC and Competency-Based Learning

      One of the greatest indicators as to how well a PLC will support competency-based learning is by examining the four critical questions of a PLC (DuFour et al., 2016). As DuFour (2015) states:

      [The] curriculum needed to provide all students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required for the 21st century will be far more rigorous and challenging than either teachers or students are accustomed…. Educators must now ensure that every student who graduates from high school is ready for college or a career. (p. 138)

      This quote speaks directly to competency and the need for a system to ensure that all students have opportunities to engage in experiences that provide chances to practice and learn these abilities:

      › Critical-thinking skills and problem-solving skills

      › Creativity and innovation

      › Effective communication through clear and convincing written and oral expression

      › Collaboration skills

      › Inferential reasoning

      › Analytical-thinking skills

      › Self-directed learning (in other words, having learned how to learn)

      › Transference of learning to new situations

      › Evaluation of sources for importance and credibility

      › Openness to and utilization of critical feedback (DuFour, 2015, p. 138)

      Competency, by definition, is the “ability to transfer content and skill in and/or across content areas” (Bramante & Colby, 2012, p. 65). So the four critical questions of a PLC help determine precisely what students must be able to demonstrate to successfully show their competency, assist teachers in building assessments that allow students to demonstrate competency, and provide integrated opportunities for support or extension, depending on each student’s needs.

      We will examine each question to further support this assertion.

       What Do We Expect Students to Know and Be Able to Do?

      Teachers should be crystal clear about what students are expected to know and demonstrate in their learning. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (2005) outline a backward design process for answering this question:

      We cannot say how to teach for understanding, or which material and activities to use, until we are quite clear about which specific understandings we are after and what such understandings look like in practice.” (pp. 14–15)

      Utilizing a backward design planning system, teams make the outcomes for any unit clear to learners.

      Many educators have difficulty determining the difference between a standard and a competency. In their book Off the Clock, Bramante and Colby (2012) describe standards as the what of learning and competencies as the why of learning. Another way to look at it is to think of competencies as the umbrella, with the leverage and enduring standards beneath the umbrella of competency.

      Larry Ainsworth (as cited in DuFour et al., 2016) provides clarity on priority standards (those that provide leverage and those deemed to be enduring) by explaining that students will be able to apply leverage standards across subject areas, while with enduring standards, students will need to know and be able to demonstrate competency beyond the specific course or grade level.

      It is impossible for any teacher to cover the sheer number of existing standards. Competency-based learning focuses on depth over breadth. As Robert J. Marzano and Mark W. Haystead (2008) note, “Schooling, as currently configured, would have to be extended from kindergarten to grade 21 or 22 to accommodate all the standards” (p. 7). The important skills involve transfer at a depth of knowledge (DOK) level 3 or 4. Norman Webb’s (2005) depth of knowledge refers to the complexity of thinking required to successfully and appropriately complete a task or assignment (Aungst, 2014):

      Level 1: Recall and Reproduction