Colleges, universities or systems should not back away from competency-based education if they can’t immediately implement some of the hallmarks of CBE: freedom from the credit hour, authentic assessments, self-paced progression, etc. Rather, a plan should be developed that allows for transitioning to the more impactful components of CBE. As states and colleges evolve in their adoption and implementation of CBE, some are finding it challenging to fully implement a strictly non-credit hour, direct assessment model. As such, a plan that provides a scaffold for both transitioning to competency-based practices and scaling the model beyond a small group should be considered. In short, CBE exists along a continuum with evolving adoption that ranges to classroom-based, competency-based instructional practices to a fully developed program-level CBE model that impacts instruction, delivery, services and policy.
