The impacts of the rapidly changing workplace are especially evident in information technology careers. In a 1996 report, the Information Technology Association of America documented a conservative estimate of 190,000 unfilled positions in information technology. The challenge of high schools, colleges and universities is to provide an adequate number of students with the appropriate skills to meet this demand.

Skill standards provide an agreement of what is expected to be successful in a given career area. They provide a validated, industry consensus upon which educators can build curricula. Using Industry skill standards as the foundation for curricula will result in a closer alignment between educational programs and workplace expectations and result in a better skilled workforce. Curricula that is informed by industry skill standards should have the following primary elements:

Competency-Based Education. Industry skill standards describe what employees must know and be able to do to be successful. The corresponding curricula must also emphasize what learners know and can do as a result of the learning process. Competency-based curriculum identifies and articulates explicit expectations for performance. This approach makes it easier, therefore, to identify benchmarks for appropriate education levels and facilitates articulation.

Learner Program Outcomes. These are outcomes that describe what learners must know and be able to do by the end of a program of study. It is a goal statement specifying the desired knowledge, skills, and abilities to be developed as a result of educational experiences. Course/module outcomes, in contrast, are measurable aspects of learner performance for a course/module. They need to be identified and sequenced to support the learner program outcomes. Skill standard-based curriculum must specify the learner outcomes in terms of performance to the level of knowledge, skill, and ability described in the standard.

Performance Assessment. Assessment if the key to knowing whether the learner has met the level of performance set by the standard. They are observations of student performance or student work that tell us what and how well learners have achieved. Quality performance assessment has pre-established performance criteria.

Integrated Curriculum The fast changing workplace requires workers to utilize sophisticated technical knowledge to solve problems that are constantly changing. Integration of technical content with foundation skills in the teaching/learning process provides realistic applications, portability of skills across experiences, and increases relevance for learners.

Industry skill standards are the foundation that provides a basis for educational programs. The elements described above provide the primary framework educators need to use to make an effective translation.

Each of these areas are covered in more detail in the following pages.

Competency-Based Education (CBE)

Why Competency-Based Education?

Competency-based education is structured around competent performance by learners where competence is defined in terms of achievement to the level of industry standards. The quality of education is more easily measured, therefore, because the criteria for achievement are more precisely defined. Since the levels of performance are described by the standards, consistency of expected performance between programs and schools is more easily achieved.

What is Competency-Based Education?

Competency-based education is an organized set of learning experiences that are:

• based on knowledge, skills, and abilities to be demonstrated by the learner.
• derived from occupational expectations.
• explicit in stating expected mastery levels.

Competency-based education involves

"both the ability to perform in a given context and the capacity to transfer knowledge and skills to new tasks and situations."

In order for curricula to be considered competency-based, it must contain these essential elements:

• Competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities) to be demonstrated by the learner that are:
  • derived from industry-identified skill standards;
  • stated so as to make possible assessment of a learner's behavior in relation to specific competencies;
  • made public in advance.
• Criteria to be employed in assessing competencies that are:
  • based upon, and in harmony with, specified competencies;
  • explicit in stating expected levels of mastery under specified conditions;
  • made public in advance.
• Assessment of the student's competency that:
  • uses performance as the primary source of evidence;
  • measures performance against a competency standard;
  • strives for objectivity.
• Modular in its approach which allows for flexibility - the mix-and-match of program components.

The learner's rate of progress through the program is determined by demonstrated competency rather than time or course completion.

The instructional program is intended to facilitate the development and evaluation of the learner's achievement of specified competencies.