Revising Competencies

"Okay, let's color code these handwritten comments."

"What are you thinking?"

"Well, we're seeing a lot of comments about language, so let's make that a color--green?"

"Green works."

"And we know we are looking to revise for any pitfalls from the reDesign criteria--quantity, adjectives, measurable and such--so let's make that yellow."

"Okay."

"And blue--we've seen a lot of level shifting comments. Teachers want performance descriptors leveled up or down across the continuum so what about blue for that?"

"Sounds good."

"I'm going to write it on the wall."

And so it goes. I work on a team of three Curriculum, Assessment and Data Specialists. We are charged with designing and aligning tools and process across the learning system that is Singapore American School. Currently, we are working with partners to develop a set of competencies that will define outcomes for every graduate. Twenty competencies are organized by "desired student learning outcome" or DSLO as pictured below.

We have just finished feedback rounds. More than eighty faculty participated in the sessions. Those faculty, along with Ed Leaders and the Guiding Coalition (distributed leadership groups) gave us feedback on the competencies. Now we are re-reading the feedback, looking for patterns and revising the competencies based on teachers' input.  It is detailed writing work.

Should we reorganize where competencies are nested? Is Self-Directed Learning collaborative? What about the performance levels for skills? Do we scale back the ten levels we created and vary them based on the skill? What's most appropriate for learners and learning? When we say the word ___ what do we really mean? What does, for instance, formal and informal discussion mean to learners?

We ask a lot of questions as we read and read and talk and talk and decide and revise.

We try not to get too mired in single words.  This is, after all, just our next draft, our best thinking at this time.