Educational Practices: Competency-Based Education

The learning college movement brought a focus on the cognitive outcomes of education to a fevered pitch in the decade prior to the turn of the century. This chapter discusses the practical, on-campus implications of the move toward documenting learning outcomes. It explores the impact of standardized curriculum development software on teaching practices. The chapter suggests the work of professional educators is deskilled when colleges demand the use of course planning technology. Competency-based education, also known as mastery or performance-based education, appealed to managers because the approach requires a practice where teachers make use of curriculum models that document the skills that students develop. Competency-based education is often described in terms that sound beneficent. In spite of claims that Worldwide Instructional Design System is learner-centered, competency-based models reduce the role of students to merely passing through linear sets of preordained objectives.