Calbright is a national leader in an approach to learning called “Competency-Based Education” – commonly referred to as CBE in education – that is different from traditional colleges. In most schools, students must spend a specific amount of time in classrooms, and do all the work the class assigns, regardless of what a student already understands or has learned. Students in traditional education settings – at the higher education and other levels – are evaluated in large part on how much time spent in class, and whether they pass tests or turn in assignments – not understanding.
With CBE students are evaluated on what they know: The question shifts from “how long did you spend on this subject” to “Have you mastered a skill?” and “Do you understand the topic at hand?” This shift is empowering for students of all ages, but particularly working-age adults who bring previous education, work, and life experiences to their learning and program journeys, and are eager to spend their time wisely learning new skills.
If a student has mastered the skill, they don’t need to take classes in it. If they struggle with something, they can study it more. Fast or slow, the amount of time a student spends in class is not evaluated – and it has no impact on their grade. They only study what they need to learn, and they study it until you’ve mastered it.
That makes a huge difference for students like Chris, who needed to move slowly through unfamiliar material at the beginning, but discovered he could rapidly accelerate his learning as he went.
“Because it’s self-paced, you really could do as little of it as you wanted to in a given day or week or month,” he said. But after a slow start, “I had a lot of wind in my sails and I was feeling really, really good and really proud of myself. I finished the first part of the course in just two months!” At first he needed the CBE approach to access the material at all, then he was able to take advantage of CBE to better support his goals – all without penalty or administrative issues.
Jimmy, who graduated from Calbright’s IT Support program, says the combination of self-paced learning with ongoing guidance and support made Calbright not just a unique experience in higher education, but a better one.
“I love that it’s self-paced, but also that unlike a lot of programs where they say it’s self-paced – there’s guidance attached with that at Calbright,” he said. “You get to decide your schedule, but they work out a plan with you that fits your life. And there’s so many people I can connect with – I have a specific instructor for the class, and also a counselor and coaches, and they’re all on the same Slack I am, and so if I get stuck I have someone to reach out to. I love that about Calbright. They have guidance. They have mentorship. It’s great.”
It’s a system that has many advantages, as Calbright students regularly share, and it also has unique challenges. A system as innovative as CBE requires an innovative approach to evaluation.
The highest common standards set for CBE evaluations are developed through C-BEN, the Competency-Based Education Network, an organization which develops resources and partners with institutions to make sure CBE programs measure what they’re intended to measure and do what they’re supposed to do for students.
Calbright has been working with C-BEN for years, and the College’s CEO and President, Ajita Talwalker Menon, sits on its board of directors.
Recently C-BEN piloted a quality assurance process that provides a framework for quality CBE programs. Calbright was one of three institutions asked to provide feedback on C-BEN’s tools and process.
“Calbright reviewed one of our programs utilizing the C-BEN’s ‘QualAssurance’ evaluation process. By following the QualAssurance process, Calbright had the opportunity to reflect on the current design and delivery of our programs. We feel confident the process validated our program design and quality,” said Shannon McCarty, Calbright’s Vice President of Learning and Instruction. “Then we were able to inform the process, suggesting updates and ways the evaluation process can improve.”
Institutions participating in the C-BEN evaluation process need to show that they offer high value credentials that “demonstrate measurable positive outcomes for graduates, including employment rates, wage increases, and career advancement,” according to C-BEN.
The QualAssurance process measures the institution’s competencies – the skills they have people learning – along with their assessment processes and their program designs. Are they clear and transparent? Are they verified and validated by external sources? Do they support students?
The ultimate goal is for a credential approved by C-BEN to be a “trusted signal for learners, employers, agencies, systems, and states” that the programs have a competitive advantage.
These are standards that Calbright welcomes, supports, and is leading the way in. Callbright’s feedback to C-BEN will be used to make the next set of evaluation processes for CBE even more effective for other colleges nationwide.
But even as a leader in Competency-Based Education, independent evaluation like C-BEN’s is crucial to Calbright, which strives to keep the college “logistically simple” – eliminating red tape and burdensome administrative processes that can take up too much of a student’s time and energy – while being academically rigorous. Calbright students shouldn’t just pass their courses: They should be prepared to thrive in their careers and the 21st century job market.
“Competency-based education requires intentional design, rigor, authentic assessments, quality feedback, and careful quality assurance,” said Jessica Schaid, a member of Calbright’s Curriculum and Assessment Development faculty who was involved in the QualAssurance process. “We define rigor through clear and measurable competencies, validated assessments, and demonstrated mastery through hands-on application, so adult learners are evaluated consistently and transparently. Our partnership with C-BEN reflected that approach and reinforced what Calbright was built to do: create high-quality, relevant, and flexible programs that respect adult learners’ experience and lead to real workforce outcomes.”
