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PART I:

VISION

Core Ideas ofPersonalized Competency-Based Education

Part I provides ideas based on research and practical experience for you to consider building into your ideal vision of PCBE. You should form a team of teachers and other stakeholders to develop your vision (see steps 1.2 and 2.1 in chapters 9 and 10, pages 159 and 189, for guidance). We suggest that your team explore six core ideas while developing your vision (we originally introduced these core ideas in our previous book, Reinventing Schools: It’s Time to Break the Mold [Reigeluth & Karnopp, 2013]).

1. Competency-based education

2. Learner-centered instruction

3. Restructured curriculum

4. New roles

5. A nurturing culture

6. New organizational structures

Please note that all six core ideas are important and interdependent aspects of PCBE. Chapters 1 through 6 address each of these core ideas respectively. However, they do not constitute a model because they can be implemented in very different ways. Rather, they constitute a different paradigm of education, within which there can be many different models. The challenge for your team is to figure out what features are best for your school or schools. Also, your team should not attempt to create your ideal vision without consulting part II: Action, first.

Each chapter begins with principles that identify features of PCBE based on research and the sciences of learning and instruction (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018; Reigeluth, Beatty, & Myers, 2017). Then, each chapter offers some detailed guidance for your team to consider in developing your own vision of PCBE. The detailed guidance sections take a question-and-answer format to help you conceptualize your vision. Many changes you decide to make in your classrooms may require that changes be made on the school level and even the district level, so we address all three levels within each chapter.

The first time you read part I, we recommend that you skip the detailed guidance sections, to give you a better understanding of how the principles in each chapter are interrelated and interdependent. Once you’ve read through the principles in part I, return to each chapter to delve into the detailed guidance. Also, be sure to consult part II before designing your ideal vision. This will give you a more holistic (systemic) view for your vision. At the beginning of the first six chapters, we provide the following “map” (table P1.1) to help you keep track of where you are in this scheme.

Chapter 7 presents two case studies that span all six core ideas—one for an independent public school that includes changes on two levels (classroom and school), and one for a school district that includes changes on all three levels (classroom, school, and district).

Table P1.1: PCBE Core Ideas and Principles

Core Ideas	Principles
1. Competency-Based Education	A. Competency-based student progress B. Competency-based student assessment C. Competency-based learning targets D. Competency-based student records
2. Learner-Centered Instruction	E. Learning by doing F. Instructional support G. Personalized learning H. Collaborative learning
3. Restructured Curriculum	I. Relevance to students’ current and future lives J. Whole-child education K. Balance of universal content and individual strengths L. Sound progressions in content
4. New Roles	M. Teacher as guide N. Self-directed student O. Parent as partner P. Technology as a tool for students
5. A Nurturing Culture	Q. Strong and caring relationships R. Multi-year mentoring and multi-age grouping S. Motivational learning T. Family services
6. New Organizational Structures	U. Small school size V. Professional organizational structure W. Student choice, teacher incentives, and accountability X. Administrative structures Y. Governance structures

Visit MarzanoResources.com/reproducibles to download a free reproducible version of this table.

As an introduction to part I, we offer the following vignette that describes PCBE in action. The real classroom in this scenario represents only one of many ways the principles or guidelines can be implemented. Every community—indeed, every neighborhood—has different needs and resources, so its classrooms should differ correspondingly. Such diversity among classrooms is in sharp contrast to teacher-centered classrooms, which we have typically strived to make identical to each other—a relic of the industrial-age mindset of standardization and one size fits all.

Note: This vignette is based on one of the authors’ experiences in a charter school. We recognize that charter schools are controversial in some circles, but because they often have more flexibility than traditional public schools, many have experimented with PCBE.

Housed in a small charter school, Ms. Clark’s lower elementary classroom is a large, wide-open room with large windows. The walls are bare except for a framed poster of Van Gogh’s Starry Night and a large framed image of Earth. Carefully arranged shelves divide the room into four distinct areas representing different content areas—mathematics, language arts, the sciences, and social studies. Each shelf displays a variety of hands-on materials accessible to the students. One table in the science area is set up with materials for learners to conduct a science experiment with magnets, either individually or in small groups. Child-sized tables for four students and a few individual desks are dispersed around the classroom. There is also a large open space in the center of the room with an area rug and a small easel and whiteboard. To the right of the easel is a low table where Ms. Clark places a large stack of photocopied work plans, and under the table is a bin full of clipboards.

On this Tuesday morning in November, Ms. Clark and her classroom assistant, Ms. Santos, welcome their twenty-four lower-elementary students (grades 1–3). Two students, Clara and Travis, walk to the whiteboard to see if their names appear in any of the lists of lesson groups scheduled for the morning. Clara notices her name in a geometry lesson group. She flips through the bin of clipboards until she finds the one with her work plan, which she started yesterday. She grabs a pencil and settles down on the floor to copy the words geometry lesson onto her work plan under the column marked Tuesday. Two other students enter the room and seek out a puzzle map from a shelf in the social studies area. They bring it to a mat on the floor and sit down with it.

Travis, a second grader, grabs a clipboard with his work plan from the bin and heads to a low table where a laminated card with his name on it is sitting out where he left it next to a box of wooden number tiles. He sets down his clipboard and carefully copies the words stamp game multiplication from a list of choices written on his work plan. Ms. Clark notices this and smiles. Travis had been asking her for a lesson on the stamp game material ever since his friend Andres had started using it last month. On Friday, she had watched Travis help another student work through a challenging six-digit addition problem, so she knew he was now ready. On Monday, she invited Travis to join three other students for a stamp game multiplication lesson, and he spent most of the afternoon working through multiplication problems. He was in the middle of one when the school day ended, and when he protested at the suggestion to clean up and put away the materials, Ms. Santos reminded him that he could mark it with his name card and return to it in the morning.

Because this is a new activity for Travis, Ms. Clark wanders over to watch him for a minute as he works. She notices he made a mistake in the way he grouped the tiles, and she watches quietly to see if he will notice. He pauses when the tiles don’t line up together as he had thought they would. Travis checks his paper, and then looks at the tiles again. After a moment, he finds his mistake, corrects it, and continues with the problem. Careful not to distract Travis from his work, Ms. Clark opens her tablet, pulls up his digital learning record, and makes a note that Travis independently found and corrected a mistake and was using the material correctly.

Ms. Clark then scans the room to make sure all the students are purposefully engaged in some activity. She notices a group of three friends who are laughing and chatting with no learning materials in sight. She walks over to them and whispers a reminder that the day has started. One student grabs her work plan, looks it over quickly, and then asks one of the other students in the group if she would like to complete a word study task together. They head to the word study material. The third student watches the friends walk away and shows no indication of selecting an activity to begin the day. The teacher asks him what he would like to accomplish today. When he shrugs in reply, she asks him if he has any goals that he has not yet met. He thinks for a minute and remembers a goal he had set to identify every state on his paper map of the United States. The boy smiles, runs his finger down his work plan until he finds Label U.S. Map, and then stands up and walks to the atlas on a table in the social studies area.

This scenario clearly demonstrates the six core ideas of PCBE.

1. Competency-based education: Ms. Clark has students follow a specific learning progression, and Travis moved on to the next standard or learning target when he was ready. Ms. Clark observed Travis working and noted observations in a digital system.

2. Learner-centered instruction: When Travis demonstrated motivation for learning multiplication, Ms. Clark verified that he was ready and capitalized on his motivation by setting up a lesson for a small group of four. This classroom environment gives students freedom to choose what to work on next and nurtures responsibility. Ms. Clark provides tailored instruction on concepts and the use of materials when each student is ready. Students practice independently or with guidance from a friend (or the teacher when necessary), using materials that are designed to be self-correcting, freeing the teacher to work with more students.

3. Restructured curriculum: Ms. Clark utilizes her entire classroom environment as a learning resource that integrates traditional content learning with social-emotional learning. Her careful curation and presentation of resources in the room allow students to engage with different content at different levels of complexity to meet their needs and interests. For example, two students explored geography through a simple puzzle map, while another accessed an atlas and paper map of the United States to identify all the states. The classroom environment also provides opportunities for teaching self-direction skills, as when Ms. Clark guided a child to remember and act on personal goals (labeling every state), or when Ms. Santos reminded Travis of a strategy for redirecting his frustration at having to stop an activity at the end of the day by placing his name card with the material as a reminder that it will be there for him the next day. In this way, the curriculum addresses the needs of the whole child.

4. New roles: Rather than delivering curriculum to the class, Ms. Clark choreographs and guides student learning by carefully selecting the materials that will be available to students on the shelves or tables, arranging small-group minilessons, checking for student understanding through observations, and directing student attention to ensure expectations are clear. Her students are responsible for deciding which learning option to take on and when, whom to work with, and where in the room to work. They are empowered to advocate for moving on when they think they are ready.

5. A nurturing culture: The classroom, with a mix of ages in grades 1–3, allows multi-year mentoring, which helps build strong and caring relationships and reduces unhelpful comparisons or competition among students. Students are encouraged to help each other, and they can interact with each other throughout the day. Hands-on, activity-based learning with a degree of student choice results in a high level of motivation.

6. New organizational structures: At the time of this scenario, this public charter school enrolled just under one hundred students in grades K–5. Parents chose to enroll their children in the school for a variety of reasons, ranging from the school’s pedagogical approach and mission to convenience of location. Teacher voice is strong, with teachers meeting regularly with the school leader to determine how to best align the Montessori curricular components with project-based learning. The small school size facilitates teacher and parent engagement.