Competency-Based Assessment

Competency-Based Learning, Teaching Practices 0 comments

Competency-Based Assessment

Some thoughts

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Twitter: @jonacuso

Post 198

“In traditional classrooms, teachers use a variety of assessment methods to measure student knowledge of a particular skill or concept. While this knowledge is important, in competency based classrooms, an understanding of content is insufficient” (Assessment Methods, n.d.). Students must demonstrate that they are able to comprehend and use theoretical concepts explained to them on specific tasks such as case studies, essays, journals, observations, oral presentations, portfolios, simulations, tests, and so on. As stated by Laureate Education, “assessment must also measure a student’s ability to demonstrate and apply the knowledge to real world experiences” (Assessment Methods, n.d.).

In a previous post, a competency on literary analysis based on the reader response was provided. Students taking a course such as Literary Criticism, where they have to study different approaches to get a better understanding of literary pieces, are exposed to a great array of approaches used in literature to make sense of literary creations. The ultimate idea behind this course on Literary Criticism dealing with analyses and approaches is to train learners to read literature for their own enjoyment, comprehend it better for further explanations, and become prepared to be using these methods for literary analysis when they become the language instructors in a school or university.

Antecedent – Behavior – Condition Competency Formulation

A = Using the Reader Response way of literary interpretation,

B = Learners will be able to analyze the poem A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body by Andrew Marvell

C = by providing their personal points of view in an APA-format essay that must include an introduction, three developmental paragraphs, and a conclusion

As it can be seen here, the literary competency above is based on the antecedent, behavior, condition method. It is rather self-explanatory, but what really matter here is how this competency is going to be measured to guarantee that learners can prove the mastery of how the Reader Response rationale for literary analysis is used.

As it can also be seen in the formulation of the competency for a Literary Criticism course, an essay is a good way to test student competency development. “Essays allow students to demonstrate knowledge of competencies, communication skills, and analytical skills through writing” (Laureate Education, 2013). According to the formulation of the learning outcome phrased as a competence, learners need to demonstrate mastery in the production of APA-format essays. Essays do imply the planning of writing to meet communication standards to make one’s point clear to a reader, and they also imply the deeper analysis of literary productions based on a very specific literary approach such as the Reader Response or any other that can be studied in a course like this.

A literary competency like the one outlined above does include some degree of challenge in its implementation. To start with, the instructor must be certain that learners are fully acquainted with the writing of essays, its structure, its implications in citing sources, the APA format, etc. This is something that needs to be tested prior having students produce an essay based on a competency-based learning outcome. The writing of an essay is a sub-skill in this competency that the instructor must ensure for its success, and a way of testing learner understanding of APA writing is to have some writing task to verify comprehension. In addition to essay writing, the correct application of the literary approach has to be also tested, practiced, scaffolded, and reviewed as many times as necessary before a student is sent to write a paper. If by any chance the learner fails to understand how a given literary approach is used, the product that is going be produced is far away from the demonstration of the mastery of a given concept. Once again, the monitoring and observation of learners while applying the approach in in-class literary analyses is crucial.

As stated by Laureate Education (2013), we teachers must “measure mastery of skills, knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes students need to display in a content area, profession, field, or workplace.” If all these is not met, we are somehow going back to just the traditional way of summatively assessing students by providing them with a grade that does not necessarily show proof of mastery of a concept. Instructors must “assess student ability to demonstrate a competency rather than just know it” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2013).