We are emerging from a year’s collaboration with Reaching Higher New Hampshire to create a set of videos about competency-based education, in which students must prove mastery of topics and skills before advancing to the next unit or grade level. New Hampshire is a leader in the field, with 17 districts running in-depth pilots of competency education and all districts required to transition to the approach in coming years.
The output of this project includes the full 13-minute PACE: Unleashing Student and Teacher Potential, a short trailer version, and standalone pieces on Student Perspectives on Competency Education and How is PACE Calibrated? We also created a flurry of 30-60 second social media clips drawn from the out-takes.
“This whole archaic system of moving kids along because of how old they are, really goes away with this competency system,” says Justin Roy, Spaulding High School principal. “Because it’s more about what they’re understanding and what they’re learning and what they are able to show that they can do.”
Ben Mathias, a ninth grade geometry student, likes the PACE assessments, “It’s different than having a letter grade because in most schools you take a test and then they find the percentage out of it. So you get a 70 on a test, that’s barely passing or whatever. But you only know 70% of the material and yet you are still being able to go on. But with competencies you actually have to show that you know the whole scope of the subject to actually be able to pass and move on to the next topic.”