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Strong Foundations: Writing and Iterating Competencies and Outcomes

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Maybe you're sitting down to write your discipline-specific competencies for a new course, or maybe you're iterating them in preparation for the coming school year. In any case, you're forming or re-forming the very foundations of your course, your competencies and outcomes. A competency-based course, like a house, must have a sturdy, well-constructed foundation before you should even think about building the rest of it.

But how hard can it be?

Well, the experience of the GOA faculty has been that crafting clear, precise and useful competencies and outcomes is difficult, big-picture work, best undertaken well before the course begins as an initial step in the design/iteration process. This page is meant to serve as a guide and as a resource for teachers who are writing or re-writing competencies and outcomes.

Table 1, "A Competency Blueprint", pulls apart one of the GOA Core Competencies and points out some if its key features. Our hope is that teachers will model their competencies and outcomes on the work that we have done, resulting in coherence and transparency in the course.

Tables 2 and 3 are an adaptation of this Competency Validation Rubric developed for use in New Hampshire public secondary schools. We have simply stripped out some of the language referring to state standards and separated the criteria out to clarify the difference between what we at GOA call competencies and what we call outcomes.

If you struggle to find the right language to express exactly what you hope to observe in your students' work, Table 4 is the tool for you. Many a GOA teacher has found that Bloom's Action Verbs make excellent bricks in their course foundations.

Table 1

A Competency Blueprint

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Table 2

Competencies at GOA

At GOA, when we talk about competencies, we are talking about multifaceted skill sets, learner dispositions and habits of mind. The GOA Core Competencies are transdisciplinary in nature, though teachers in our courses typically develop 2-4 discipline-specific competencies to supplement them. The competencies that GOA teachers develop surface again and again throughout the course, allowing students to build toward mastery over time.

As you are writing or iterating your competencies, compare them to the criteria below to assure that you are establishing a strong foundation for your course.

*Competencies should show up as "Outcome Groups" in your Canvas course.

Strong

Sturdy

Flimsy

Crumbling

Relevance to Content Area

To what extent does this competency statement lead students to conceptual understanding of content?

...articulates, in a clear and descriptive way, what is important in understanding the content area.

...connects the content to higher concepts across content areas.

...states what is important in understanding the content area.

...addresses conceptual content.

... is either too abstract or too specific in its content area focus.

...is so detailed in language that it obscures the connection to higher concepts.

...focus on content is factual in nature without connection to concepts.

Enduring Concepts

To what extent does this competency statement reflect enduring concepts?

...includes skills that are transferable across content areas and applicable to real-life situations.

...requires an understanding of relationships between/among theories, principles, and/or concepts.

...includes skills that are transferable across content areas with real-life connections.

...is based on concepts supported by topics and/or facts.

...is a statement specific to program/resource used.

...is based on topics applicable to the course.

...is limited to scope and sequence of textbook/program/resource.

...is very specific to facts in content.

Cognitive Demand

What depth of knowledge does this competency statement promote?

...requires deep understanding of content as well as application of knowledge to a variety of settings.

...asks students to create conceptual connections and exhibit a level of understanding that is beyond the stated facts or literal interpretation and defend their position or point of view through application of content.

...promotes complex connections through creating, analyzing, designing, proving, developing, or formulating.

...reflects academic rigor and implies opportunities for students to apply knowledge in a variety of ways.

...asks students to create conceptual connections and exhibit a level of understanding that is beyond the stated facts or literal interpretation.

...promotes deep knowledge using reasoning, planning, interpreting, hypothesizing, investigating, or explaining.

...is limited in academic rigor and/or opportunities to apply knowledge.

...asks students to show what they know in ways that limit their ability to build conceptual knowledge.

...requires engagement of mental practices such as identifying, defining, constructing, summarizing, displaying, listing, or recognizing.

...asks for routine or rote thinking or basic recall, and lacks opportunities to apply knowledge.

...asks students to show what they know in simplistic ways.

...requires recall of information, facts, definitions, and terms such as reciting, stating, recognizing, listing, reproducing, memorizing or performing simple tasks or procedures.

Table 3

Outcomes at GOA

At GOA when we talk about outcomes we are talking about observable, measurable learning outcomes that teachers assess in their students' work. We use outcomes on our rubrics, and to track student progress toward mastery over time. Skillful performance of a number of outcomes is a sign of progress toward mastery of the larger competencies. At GOA, we ask teachers to create a series of clear learning outcomes and nestle them under each discipline- specific competency that they create for their courses. In short, your outcomes are the answer to the question: "How will I know if student's are mastering the stated competencies?"

As you are writing an outcome (or iterating one) ask yourself if it meets the criteria outlined below.

Strong

Sturdy

Flimsy

Crumbling

Relative to Assessment

To what extent does the outcome statement promote opportunities for students to demonstrate evidence of learning?

...defines what is to be measured in clear and descriptive language.

...promotes multiple and varied opportunities to demonstrate evidence of learning in interdisciplinary fashion.

...defines what is to be measured.

...promotes either multiple or varied opportunities to demonstrate evidence of learning.

...is disconnected from the product of learning.

...implies limited opportunities to demonstrate evidence of learning.

...lacks description of what is to be measured.

...limits evidence of learning to recall.

Table 4

Bloom's Action Verbs for Crafting Outcomes

This table has been immensely helpful for many GOA faculty who are looking to fine tune the language in their competencies and outcomes. The version that appears here is from the US Air Force's website. Using some of these verbs in both your competencies and your outcomes, can help to keep assessment in your course as experience oriented as Top Gun training (though slightly less stressful, we hope).

Knowledge

arrange, define, describe, duplicate, identify, label, list, match, memorize, name, order, outline, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, select, state

Comprehension

classify, convert, defend, discuss, distinguish, estimate, explain, express, extend, generalize, give example(s), identify, indicate, infer, locate, paraphrase, predict, recognize, rewrite, report, restate, review, select, summarize, translate

Application

apply, change, choose, compute, demonstrate, discover, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, manipulate, modify, operate, practice, predict, prepare, produce, relate schedule, show, sketch, solve, use write

Analysis

analyze, appraise, breakdown, calculate, categorize, classify, compare, contrast, criticize, derive, diagram, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, identify, illustrate, infer, interpret, model, outline, point out, question, relate, select, separate, subdivide, test

Synthesis

arrange, assemble, categorize, collect, combine, comply, compose, construct, create, design, develop, devise, explain, formulate, generate, plan, prepare, propose, rearrange, reconstruct, relate, reorganize, revise, rewrite, set up, summarize, synthesize, tell, write

Evaluation

appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, conclude, contrast, defend, describe, discriminate, estimate, evaluate, explain, judge, justify, interpret, relate, predict, rate, select, summarize, support, value

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