 Thank you Amy and Thank you all of you and boy are these colleges with which I've been working doing some incredible stuff and As Amy pointed out one of the things that we hope to do today is Make the concept of competency-based education a little more real You're going to be able to hear from some leaders Unfortunately a few of whom got caught in tornado related activities in Chicago so they won't be here as advertised one's going to come in by audio and Dan is going to carry the banner to keep things going and he'll explain this when that panel comes up Let me just mention though that Western Governors University Really was developed by the members of the Western Governors Association back in 1997 I believe with the directive to create Post-secondary educational opportunities oops, sorry Post-secondary opportunities that would be available any time and any place But in addition to that would focus on the state's workforce needs. These were governors, you know and be affordable Not replicate Stuff that's already out there. So learning materials that already existed you don't have to keep doing the same things over and over figure out ways to use them and Finally, it was to be competency-based and as Amy mentioned I was part of the team that Designed that and I thought one of the other team members was going to be able to job He did in the back as Mike Goldstein who was one of that team there were only what four or five of us that were part of that for about a year pulling that thing together and We had this directive to create a new kind of University not because competency-based ed was new or not because doing things in a technological environment was new but the notion of creating a scalable framework that is competency-based and Really utilizes current technologies Was an interesting challenge and really quite fun and I would suggest to you that right now WGU Western Governors University is a proof of concept It's been 16 years. There are over 40,000 students currently enrolled. We've had 25,000 graduates The cost is under $6,000 a year The average time to a baccalaureate degree is about three years Students are highly satisfied 98% of our graduates say they would recommend somebody else coming to them and over 80% of our graduates are employed in the field in which they studied That's higher than the national average for even comprehensive universities Now the issue of competency-based education and part of the core framework of this is you're flipping time and mastery In a traditional setting a group of students start at the same time They work with academic Experts and leaders and we usually think of these people as faculty and they finish at the same time Some of those students master all of the material and they get an A Some of those students in that time frame Don't master it all or master some of it or don't do as well on other parts and they get lower grades When we switch into a competency-based framework We're talking about mastery for everyone Every student is working toward mastery of the skills and knowledge that have been determined by groups of both academics and employers that are needed for him or her to progress through the program That's a fundamental change in thinking and it's tough to wrap your minds around it sometimes And it's certainly been tough for some of the faculty. We've been working with but you know what they've done it It's incredible I Mean we all know that not everybody learns at the same rate And we also know that on everybody learns the same things at the same rate So it when I was in college it took me longer to master calculus than it did for me to master US history I could have zipped through history, but I didn't have that option I sat through 15 16 weeks of classes and then eventually finished up as We've been working with a set of colleges and universities. It's it's really And this is really Lewis who you'll hear from a little later who kind of gave me this concept It's really interesting that I think we can begin to talk about CBE as a platform That enables what I would call individualized learning It's not group stuff anymore. Well, it is but not not in a real sense It is the ability to take full advantage of Really helping individuals work through The materials that will help them master Skills and knowledge that are deemed critical to their degree or Certificate or whatever it is. They're trying to accomplish Sometimes the technology does work We have been working with a group of colleges that you just heard a little bit about under the attack program and those are Austin Broward and Sinclair and we're going to hear from a Leader from Broward in in a few minutes But we've also been working with another group of colleges Thanks to a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation so we've been basically learning from what we do with the first group and Applying it with the second group The folks in the first group and actually one in the second group that that had a separate tax grant have already Enrolled students and they are learning a lot. They had eight months basically to go from oh my gosh What are we doing to? Creating a full-blown program that has enabled them to let students come into their program and continue to progress Now the leaders of these colleges Really embraced the promise of competency-based education as a real part of the future of their Institutions and they knew the only way they could figure this out was to try it I mean you have to kind of do it because it touches every structure within the institution and None of these colleges or the staff and faculty there had the advantage of being given a blank sheet of paper and A few directives to try and invent a new way of doing things They're starting with everything they now do and have been doing for decades And that's tougher because you've got to figure out how to fit that proverbial square peg into the round hole they've been designing programs and Structures that will fit into the way in which they're doing everything and that means Shifts in thinking about operations differently labor contracts state requirements accrediting expectations and federal regulations Not to mention just how in the world do we do something that doesn't work with our SIA our student information system or our current learning management system What we're going to be able to offer you today as some perspectives on What kinds of transformations these leaders have actually been guiding their campuses through and that's a big deal? It's a very big deal The resulting models from all 11 of these institutions again four of which have launched and the others will be Enrolling students in January of 2014 They all look a bit different and they look a bit different for all kinds of reasons Some of them have to do with what were the workforce needs locally and how do they respond to those and what does the population look like? But they also look different because they may have had a very sophisticated support program for their Distance learning operation and others may not have they may have had a very strong and innovative Leadership within their faculty and others did not there's such a host of different ways in which these colleges have had to come to this framework that They do look different and we don't know what works best And we really have to talk in terms of what works best at a particular place for a specific state for a particular local location However, out of this we have been able to develop a set of what I'm calling design principles And these are really extensive all five of them So I'm going to share them with you Sounds simple this first one that the degree reflects robust and valid competencies, but the questions behind it get to be very interesting How do you develop your program level competencies? How do those competencies reflect the skills and knowledge that your students are going to need for their next stage of development? Whether it's further academic work or whether it's moving into the workforce How do you measure the validity of these competencies that you've developed? None of those are simple questions not a one of them The next one is that students are able to learn at a variable pace and are supported This is a loaded one because support is Critical you can't just say oh here you students Here's a bunch of material go learn it and at the end show us you know this Doesn't work that way. It's just not the way things work except for a very very small proportion of Individuals within our communities So behind this particular principle or questions like you know What is it that your system or how does your system allowing students to progress at variable paces? Remember that's a key element of individualized learning and allowing students to move at the pace they need to go How do you get access to the learning resources and the academic support that you may need in an asynchronous manner? How did the faculty work with students? Regardless of where the students are in a course they may be anywhere and and that's a challenge And I'm I'm pleased to say that all of these colleges with which we've been working their faculty have kind of figured out how They can do this again. They're doing it in different ways, but it's working How do you help students understand what this is all about how do you orient them to this whole framework? And how do you know or what's the trigger to knowing that a student is going to need some real support? And when do they need it and how do you get to them? And finally, how do you measure the effectiveness of your model? Critical element here is that the learning resources, whatever they are Have to be available any time and if they're not reusable. You're just wasting money So we put that in as a as a real feature here because the goal is is not to have a system that just replicates all of our costs But to be able to create something that can be scalable and reasonably affordable So how do you how do you select or create these learning resources and how critical here? How do you track the effectiveness of them? We're going to be working with these colleges starting This coming academic with its coming calendar year to help them understand What are some of the analytics they can get their hands on or the data? They can get their hands on to use in an analytic framework so they can begin to figure out what's working and what isn't What process have they built into their model that's going to allow them to take low quality learning resources and replace them? This this isn't the cottage industry model where a faculty member just lectures. This is something quite different So can students then also have access to those these learning resources regardless of where they are in a term? This is not small stuff as you can tell another critical design principle is What is the process or that you have one anyway? explicitly that maps the competencies to courses to learning outcomes and to assessments So you need to be able to describe that process and To make sure that they all align and boy There's some creative ways in which these colleges have done that and then how do you assure the cotton? Excuse me the continuity of that So if you change one element, how do you make sure that the other elements stay in alignment? Sounds simple. It is not it's not even simple for well-developed programs The the fourth no fifth one of These is you have to have secure and reliable assessments And I want to correct something Amy said that yes all of these things will be OERs except the assessments As soon as you put those assessments out there You've kind of destroyed the integrity of the program you're building so the assessments still need to be secure both in terms of Secure materials that you're using to assess students whether it's a paper and pencil test or what's whether it's an authentic assessment or a Simulation or anything else But in addition to that you also have to be sure that the student that is engaging in that assessment is the student Who is registered for the course the program however? It's structured So you have to have processes in place to be able to gauge the effectiveness of those assessments And to be able to make sure they continue to map to courses But you also want to be able to measure the reliability of your assessments Remember the degree to some extent or the or the certification is really riding on a Student's ability to demonstrate what he or she knows So you have to be sure that that demonstration is a is a reliable demonstration and you do need to secure the the Security of those assessments Otherwise you end up in a situation in which everybody is kind of learning to the test or practicing to the test and Again, each of these colleges has developed different models This is a very simple set of design principles but underneath it is really a guiding Framework for colleges that are beginning to develop these programs and their ability to gauge each Decision they're making along the way to be sure that they're coming up with something that's coherent Now these things seem to hold together, which is why I'm I'm confident sharing them with you at this point in time But I also believe I did this well enough that we have about 10 minutes if anybody has any questions or comments, please Deb Seymour from the American Council on Education With respect to design principle for The language is the process for mapping competencies to courses learning outcomes and assessments is explicit But in a lot of the direct assessment designed programs Courses aren't really a factor. Can you comment on that? Yeah, I can let me let me suggest to you This is the way I'm thinking about it and I have Talked to others about it seems to hold I think of competency-based education as this big umbrella and direct assessment is a piece of that So so in a in the kinds of programs we're working with and certainly in the WGU model and I think Jay in Kentucky is going to mention this and the colleges with which we're working. They're not direct assessment You know, they're working in still the kind of framework that students are used to and let me go with this for a Second students are used to a kind of framework in which they're working with courses But now they're going to work with the courses differently. They're in a variable time frame depending on their capacity and ability But in addition to that, yes, they're going to be have a common assessment Whatever form that takes but they will have worked through a set of learning frameworks And they'll progress through those as quickly or slowly as they need to within limits by Doing that you open up something for students. I think the direct assessment programs are great But one of the reasons that WGU moved from what we think of now as a direct assessment Because when Mike Goldstein and our team were developing this whole framework what 16 17 years ago? it looked more like direct assessment as WGU has matured and worked with students over the last 15 years It's become very obvious that a student who starts within that program may well want to go somewhere else so by Recognizing that our field of higher education is still course-based and frankly credit-based I mean you can map back and forth, but the issue is Because that is the case a student isn't held hostage So if a student enrolls at Western Governors University and he or she works through a series of courses as they are for a year and says, you know I really want to just go sit in a classroom with somebody that would work better for me They can take with them Credits that look like we don't call them credits, but they've completed courses that look like something that other institutions can recognize and and that's the pragmatic reason why WGU really moved in that direction So does that help to answer that? Yeah Thank you It does it does help to respond to that. I Certainly within the WGU framework. I understand that and I'm familiar with the evolution and yeah, how it's evolved over the years I think there are Most of the direct assessment programs that are starting to be developed that Are at least a name not tied to credit and to courses May eventually find themselves in a position where they need to evolve the way WGU did, you know I can't predict it, but I just don't like the idea of saying to a potential learner here Come do this, but once you've done this, this is all you can do You don't have any other options. That's right. We've got you transfer becomes an issue and so worth Thank you. Sure. Sure. I think we have a question or comment in the back Do this cliff Edelman from the Institute for higher education policy? Hi Yeah, and one of the four authors of the degree qualifications profile, which is written You know some people know it version 2.0 will be out in January on right and The Bell has a project that's contributed to the evolution from 1.0 to 2.0 It's a process of iterative feedback if you want to know how competencies have formed I'll get to my question to you in a minute, but sure background. It's okay There was also a statement made that no place else in the world is this stuff going on anybody ever heard of the tuning Project in metaphor. I mean it's in every continent in the world is doing these same kinds of things, you know It's not only Europe. It's China. It's Australia. It's Africa. It's Central Asia. It's a lot of places Everything's based on statements of competence as reference points, okay But they are explicit statements of competence. There's a lot we can say here Um, and you know, we've had projects involving a lot of the schools in this room and states in this room I put the win-win report out there. Broward was in it, etc. That's community college focus Here's your question Sally. You go deal with us Oh Western governance And you know this one Is if you are all prospective students and you want to find out what competencies you're going to have to demonstrate For a degree at Western Governors, you can't find it out go online Western Governors won't tell you You call them up. They won't tell you what you have to do is register pay money And then they'll show you the competencies and that's very different and you got to defend this From the rest of the world which lays out specifically What competence statements look like how they read the language of competence statements, which is extraordinarily important I hope to see some specific competence statements on the board today So people know what you're really talking about and you've got to tell us why You do it that way at WGU I shall cliff I shall because and they tried they couldn't find out I am aware of that and the the reality is We talk about those high level competencies. Those are the things at the 30 000 foot level And yes, you can get to those by talking to people But you have to talk to the right people and and the notion is when we get down to course level competencies In all honesty, we don't do it Because most there are a few people that ask Very few you being the one that I think was the first person to ever ask And when you ask someone, well, how do I get to these you kind of go? Uh, I I don't know which I believe is the response you got and it's it's not because we're trying to hide anything It is rather that it's just not been part of the structure and system that has been created To make this what students that come to us seem to want and need As as uh, they get into it They begin to understand exactly what they need and I I know this explicitly because uh, yesterday afternoon in the airport Um, my husband was exploring a potential second master's degree. I've been saying you ought to look at this You ought to look at this Gave him my iPad and he spent an hour Diving deeply on just the public website And was able to say whoa, I see what's needed. What's expected what it is that's going to go on It's just not in the language that you're requesting as here are the competencies It's structured in a way that seems to be appropriate for people that are thinking about enrolling That's the reason and that's the only reason So thank you for the question and uh, can we take one more quick one mic Hi sally nice to uh, join you again on this When wgu was being designed one of the fundamental premises Was that the competencies represented something that employers could look at and know exactly what it is The graduate knows the graduate is capable of doing indeed the Team that put it together. It was not just the governor. It was also employers very intimately involved in design And I understand the problem of transferability and the problem of comparability But has that been lost or is that something that that we evolved back into no no the employers are very much involved with this and You know mic I know you you don't do this on a regular basis But the way in which we frame The competencies for all of our programs are done by councils that work together multiple times a year that are a combination of major employers in the field and Expert academics from outside the institution So for instance on the the group that works with our nursing programs We have some of the major folks out of hospital systems throughout the country But we also have some of the the chief Nursing educators across the country they come together hash this stuff out And then we take that as a staff and and work it down to another level. Yes, sir I was asking a slightly different question and that is originally the transcript Was going to be descriptive of competencies And so it was intended that an employer could look at the competencies and say oh, yes the student the graduate knows these things That's what i'm looking for and I realize we we learned how complex that was But is that off the table or is that something that's still it's not it's not within the the transcript But it is part of the description of the program that is available to employers Let me stop here and turn this back over to Amy and thank you very much for your interest in time