CBE and its Impact on Instructors 5 ways competency-based education is transforming the instructor’s role

AN EDUCATION DIVE PLAYBOOK

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ompetency-based education is a hot

topic in the education world today.

According to the U.S. Department of

Education, CBE transitions “away from seat time,

in favor of a structure that creates flexibility, allows

students to progress as they demonstrate mastery of

academic content, regardless of time, place or pace

of learning. Competency-based strategies provide

flexibility in the way that credit can be earned or

awarded, and provide students with personalized

learning opportunities.”1

CBE allows instructors to respond to the needs of

many learners with a more adaptable educational

experience that accommodates busy lifestyles, which

can include working and caring for family members.

In doing so CBE is transforming the way instructors

interact with their learners, how they think about the

content they are teaching, and how they deliver it.BE

really does give instructors an opportunity to rethink

what they’ve been doing and think about how it can

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“CBE really does give instructors an opportunity to

rethink what they’ve been doing and think about

how it can be be done differently,” says Van Davis,

associate vice president of higher education research

and policy at Blackboard, who previously launched

one of the first multi-institutional CBE programs

in the nation, the Texas Affordable Baccalaureate

program, and spent years in the classroom teaching

history.

CBE programs allow institutions to make higher

education accessible to a wider range of learners and

to provide more options for the roughly 36 million

adults who have some college credit, but have not

completed a degree.2

“We like students to come here and choose how they

like to get their higher education,” says Sherry Olsen,

the associate vice chancellor for the Online Division

at Keiser University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“CBE really does give instructors an opportunity to rethink what they’ve been doing and think about how it can be done differently.”

Van Davis, Associate Vice President of higher education research and policy at Blackboard

“Whether they want a face-to-face experience, a

hybrid or fully online, I just want another option for

our students.”

While CBE is providing more choice for learners, it’s

also having an impact on instructors, primarily in five

areas. This playbook examines the transformative

effects of CBE on instructors.

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any institutions are rethinking traditional

instructors’ roles and “disaggregating”

them into multiple positions to better

suit the needs of learners, Davis says. For example,

instructors remain the subject matter experts with

responsibility for curriculum and assessments, while

advisors take on more of a mentoring role to give

learners — some of whom have been out of school

for a long time — the support and coaching they

need to be successful.

These advisors “really become an advocate for the

learner,” Davis says. “They are the first line of defense

in helping to make sure the learner is able to navigate

the institution and the program.”

The overall role of the instructor is changing

1.

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At the Metropolitan State University of Denver, for

example, instructors are still fulfilling the traditional

roles of designing their courses and grading assess-

ments, while staff members in coaching roles are

handling more administrative responsibilities, such

as making sure a learner’s tuition is paid.

“We’ve taken a modified approach to developing

courses and certificates that are still tied to what the

workplace wants,” says Nancy Sayre, chair of the De-

partment of Health Professions at Metropolitan State

University of Denver.

Institutions find some learners need more guidance

and support than others. Some ways instructors and

advisors can help support those learners are:

• Individualized coaching

• Connecting learners with peers or online communities

• Using formative assessment to provide frequent feedback

J. Ritchie Boyd, part of Blackboard’s Enterprise

M

J. Ritchie Boyd, part of Blackboard’s Enterprise

Consulting team, adds that in a well-structured CBE

program, guidance and support for learners, such as

reminders and resources, are embedded into courses

and are responsive to learners’ individual needs.

Several institutions are also considering ways to

determine whether a learner is a good match for a

CBE program, requiring learners take pre-tests before

they enroll to ensure they have good time manage-

ment skills and other characteristics that will help

them be successful in a self-paced program, says Jac-

queline Hill, the associate provost for academic affairs.

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“We’ve taken a modified approach to developing courses and certificates that are still tied to what the workplace wants.”

Nancy Sayre, Chair of the Department of Health Professions at Metropolitan State University of Denver

n the CBE model, completion of a course

is no longer defined by time or a tra-

ditional academic calendar. Instead,

learners complete a course when they demonstrate

content mastery. Because of the individualized

nature of CBE, learners who have completed certain

aspects of a course are able to move ahead to the

material that they have not yet mastered. This means

that an instructor is interacting with learners who are

at different points in the course.

The calendar is changing

2.

I

Boyd adds that when institutions begin to implement

CBE programs, they often keep the existing academic

calendar because it’s helpful for both instructors and

learners to have specific start and stop dates. These

options typically occur in institutions with start/stop

dates that are of short duration. As programs mature,

however, and as administrative departments adjust

to the CBE model, they might shift to running start

dates or multiple start and stop schedules to best

accommodate learners.

For instructors, this might translate to more ongoing

interaction with learners instead of a traditional

“office hours” approach.

“First of all, we as CBE instructors have to be es-

pecially aware of being extraordinarily responsive

to learners,” says Davis. But giving students the

support they need, when they need it, is challeng-

ing when they are at different points in the course.

That’s why technological tools, such as a dashboard

that displays where each student is in the process

of completing the course, can make this aspect of

CBE easier for instructors and other support staff

members.

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“First of all, we as CBE instructors have to be especially aware of being extraordinarily responsive to learners.” Van Davis, Associate Vice President of higher education research and policy at Blackboard

n a course offered in a CBE format, the

traditional syllabus is often “deconstruct-

ed” and “reconstructed” to define the

specific competencies that a learner will achieve at

the end of the course, says Karen Yoshino, a principal

strategist at Blackboard. Instructors “articulate the

work they have been doing for years in an entirely

different framework,” she says. “It’s energizing and

I’ve heard some instructors say ‘This is fun!’ The

power of CBE is the transparency of the curricu-

lum. When learners have a clear learning target

and instructors have a teaching target, education

is demystified,” states Yoshino. “Learners no longer

need to wonder or ask ‘Is this going to be on the

test?’ When you combine visibility and transparency

with the ability for learners to cover the content and

practice mastery in a low- or no-stakes environment,

you have two key elements for learner success.”

Depending on their comfort level with developing

competencies, Davis says, some instructors ignore

existing syllabi and start the process from scratch. He

suggests that instructors refer to Bloom’s Taxonomy

as they work through this design phase because

it helps them remain aware of the higher-order

thinking skills they want learners to use in applying

their knowledge. Industry certification exams can

also be useful in the process because they are

already focused on competencies.

“The important thing is that instructors think very

deeply about the knowledge, ability and skills they

expect learners to master and the level of mastery

they will require,” Davis says.

Certificate and degree programs in health-related

professions are often a natural fit for CBE because

they are often already heavily focused on compe-

tencies. For the non-competency aligned courses,

however, institutions don’t always have the expertise

on campus to define the competencies or the expe-

rience of aligning competencies to assessments and

may need to look outside the institutions for this

expertise. Blackboard’s approach is to partner with

institutions to build their institution’s capacity for

developing competencies and aligning assessments

such that the process can be repeated and sustained.

Rethinking the framing of the curriculum

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Boyd adds that when instructors begin implementing

CBE and working toward competencies, they find

that “some aspects of course design become easier

because they can focus on selecting the content that

is more relevant to the outcomes.”

Another shift for instructors — especially those who

have been accustomed to teaching in a tradition-

al lecture model — is a move toward presenting

material in multiple formats. Some formats that may

accommodate learners’ different learning styles are:

• Case studies

• Videos

• Online discussions

In fact, Boyd adds, instructors are finding that CBE

challenges them to think more about learning

outcomes for all learners — not just those in their

CBE courses.

“ The power of CBE is thetransparency of the curriculum.When learners have a clearlearning target and instructorshave a teaching target,education is demystified.”

Karen Yoshino, Principal strategist at Blackboard

BE programs are also changing the way

instructors view both formative and

summative assessments. Instead of only

being used to calculate grades, in the CBE model,

assessment results are being used in a diagnostic

manner to determine where learners are in mastering

competencies and where they might need additional

support, Davis says.

In a CBE course, assessment “is much more specific

and granular than in a non-CBE course,”3 Yoshino

states. Quizzes, midterms and final exams are closely

linked to the competencies and become part of a

“learn-practice-assess pathway” in which learners

build their knowledge and work toward mastery.

This format keeps learners from wondering what

material is going to be on a test. And when assess-

ments are aligned to competencies and subcom-

petencies, there is less overlap between courses,

meaning learners don’t run into situations where

they’ve already covered the material in a previous

course.

At Metropolitan State University of Denver, instructors

have discussions about how many competencies or

student learning objectives one assessment should

cover. While retaining information is often the focus

of a tradi tional course, Sayre says when instruc-

tors focus on competencies, they “reflect more on

whether the assessment is a true measurement of

application of knowledge.”

Using assessments at the beginning of a course

to determine whether learners can move ahead

because they have already demonstrated compe-

tency in specific areas — and allowing learners to

take an assessment more than once — are additional

changes in how assessments are used in CBE.

What assessments work for CBE?

4.

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esigning assessments and rubrics for

CBE courses is one area in which instruc-

tors are relying on each other for input

and feedback. Both formal and informal communi-

ties of practice are developing in which instructors

can discuss best practices and learn from their peers

who have more experience with the CBE model.

These collaborative groups are important in building

support for CBE across institutions, Olsen says.

“You don’t want to force faculty to develop

something new,” Olsen says. “You want them to want

it.”

Instructor development and support

5.

DWhile some groups of instructors form within specific

departments, other “communities” have developed

that include representatives from multiple disci-

plines. For those who are juggling teaching, advising,

research and other aspects of their career, these

opportunities to step back and take a new look at

curriculum and assessments can be “reenergizing,”

Davis says.

“It gives them the space really to think through what

they’re doing and why they’re doing it,” he says “It’s

not just really empowering to be able to do this; it

allows them to have some creativity.”

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Making a DifferenceBlackboard partners directly with instructors to

develop new skills.4 Some of those news skills

involve:

• Creating a framework for a visible and

transparent curriculum

• Creating powerful learning environments

to elicit learners’ discovery and

construction of knowledge, skills and

abilities

• Creating a delivery model in which the

environment is ready when the learner is

ready

Start exchanging ideas today:

Blackboard CBE Community accessible at:

https://community.blackboard.com/groups/cbe

BE is revolutionizing higher education,

not only for learners, but also for instruc-

tors. They report stronger relationships

with learners, even if they’ve never met them in

person, and a renewed approach to teaching their

content. In many ways, CBE is bringing instructors

back to the reasons why they chose teaching in the

first place, Davis says.

“We went into teaching because we love our disci-

plines,” he says, “because we are passionate about

them, because we want to help others learn and have

better lives.”

Eduventures estimates that by 2020, as many as 750

colleges will offer CBE programs and that overall en-

rollments will exceed 500,000 learners.5 In this time,

both instructors and learners will see the enormous

transformative effects of CBE on many aspects of

higher education including the academic calendar,

curriculum and assessments. As Arthur Levine writes

in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “This is merely

the most visible aspect of a revolution occurring in

education at all levels: the shift to learning outcomes

and learner-centered education.”6

Conclusion

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By 2020, as many as 750 colleges will offer CBE programs and that overall enrollments will exceed 500,000 learners.

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We are dedicated to helping higher education institutions integrate CBE into their learners’ education experience. As a

service to the educational community, our CBE experts curated the CBE Resource Hub. This hub offers a collection of the best resources and scholarship on competency-based education in order to help faculty, staff, policymakers, and other interested

groups better understand CBE.

Learn more at theCBE Resource Hub

1. Department of Education Office of Innovation & Improvement

2. Adult College Completion Network

3. Blackboard Blog

4. Taylor Francis Online

5. Eduventures

6. The Chronicle of Higher Education

SOURCES