Competency based degrees



“Experimental College's First Graduate”

“A groundbreaking form of competency-based education now has its Patient Zero. Zach Sherman, a 21-year-old sanitation worker in Ohio, earned a self-paced associate degree from College for America in early June -- just shy of 100 days after he enrolled in the online program”.

“Sherman is the first completer among a group of five College for America students who have successfully earned its competency-based general studies degrees. Southern New Hampshire University launched the college in January. It is one of three institutions now offering “direct assessment” academic tracks, which are not based on the credit hour standard”.

“That means students can control how fast they move through the program’s task-oriented homework, assignments and assessments. There are no formal instructors at the college -- only academic coaches and reviewers who determine if students have mastered each task by checking each assignment and sending them back to students for more work until they demonstrate competency”.

“In three months Sherman earned the equivalent of 60 credits, even though the 120 competencies he mastered do not track directly to credits”.

Read the rest here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/16/new-form-competency-based-learnings-first-batch-graduates

I thought this was interesting, what are your thoughts?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam

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