Competency-Based Education

December 17, 2022

Compass Finds Its Way: Mastery Learning and State Testing

When standardized testing resumed after a two-year hiatus at Compass Community Collaborative School, the scores were higher, much higher than before the pandemic. The school’s Executive Director, Jan Harrison, and her colleagues were not all that surprised with this encouraging data. After only a few years of implementing the school’s mastery-based learning program...
August 9, 2022

Giving Credit Where It’s Due: Education Reimagined with MTC Learning Record

Do you remember a learning experience outside of school that made a difference to you? Why did that experience matter? For me, the first thing that comes to mind is actually a person: my brother, Michael Wexler.
May 23, 2022

Spring 2022: Member Highlights

Though every MTC member school has forged a unique path on its journey to mastery learning, there are common threads that connect their experiences. Clark Street Community School—a charter school in Middleton, Wisconsin, and Oxford Academy—an all-boys boarding school in Westbrook, Connecticut—are at different phases of implementing new learning models.
April 5, 2022

From Refugee to Entrepreneur: My Mastery Learning Journey

Mastery learning assuaged my doubts about being able to fulfill my potential through school. I was born in Syria and fled to Lebanon when the war started. I arrived in Jordan from Lebanon as a refugee at the age of fifteen, unsure that any of my needs would be met. When I learned of Amala, I admit that I was unsure about their mastery learning approach, especially while still adjusting to my surroundings. A new way of learning in a new environment?
January 25, 2022

Parent Perspectives on Mastery Learning

“Empowering. Motivating. Authentic. Meaningful…Don’t worry.” These were the closing sentiments of MTC parents in our last talkback of 2021. At 6pm ET on Thursday, December 2, caregivers from Wisconsin to Connecticut and the Bay Area gathered virtually to discuss their students’ journeys to mastery learning, with an eye toward college and workforce success.
October 27, 2021

Demystifying Mastery Learning: A Conversation with Utah Educators

The intentional collaboration among the systems from K-12 all the way to higher ed and the organizations overseeing them has been instrumental to the widespread adoption and success of PCBL in our state,” says Melanie Heath, Associate Commissioner for Strategic Initiative and Access for the Utah System of Higher Education. “Rather than having to push against the system, schools are being supported at the State level...
August 31, 2021

Learning from Student Work: Implications for Mastery Learning at Phillips Academy

The Workshop at Andover is a term-long, immersive learning experience for spring term seniors. It represents a significant departure from their previous schooling: they drop all of their classes and instead work with a cohort of students on a series of interdisciplinary projects.
August 12, 2021

Summer 2021: Member Highlights

What do Jordan, Missouri and Washington have in common? No, they are not home teams for “His Airness”, a former Washington Wizard. These disparate locales are where our pioneering member schools, the first three spotlighted in this “Member Highlights” series, are located.
August 12, 2021

Progressing to Mastery: Listening, Learning and Reflecting

As a deeply experienced and expert writer–one who is "unconsciously competent"–Coates finds value in slowing down and reflecting on things he might otherwise take for granted. His observation is also an endorsement of reflection and meta-cognition, two principles at the core of PBL and mastery learning.
June 9, 2021

Feedback for Learning: An Assessment System Beyond Grades

If assessment should be treated as feedback rather than measurement, the shift from measurement to qualitative feedback must be accompanied by ways to provide feedback in a growth-oriented manner, and communicate the level to which a evidence demonstrates the desired learning goals have been articulated.
May 13, 2021

Admissions, Acceptance & Anticipation: Reflecting on Higher Ed Engagement

With the sun setting on our second full college admission cycle–some seismic pandemic shifts tossed in for good measure–the Mastery Transcript has gained even more traction.
April 20, 2021

MTC Members Strive and Thrive in a Year Like No Other

From mindset-shifting to resilience and everything in between, one on one time with member schools about their respective Journeys to Mastery and the impact of the pandemic has yielded thrilling results.
April 16, 2021

School, Racism, and Hope

School, Racism, and Hope — Chief Education Officer Patricia Russell reflects on three common themes emerging from MTC member schools in 2021.
March 22, 2021

What is Assessment in the New Normal?

In this entry, Greg Curtis discusses practical ways of taking deep, summative assessment from theory to reality.
February 16, 2021

How Utah Teachers Benefit from an Ecosystem of Personalized Competency-Based Learning as Much as Students

A look at the Utah State Board of Education Personalized Competency-Based Learning Initiative
November 19, 2020

Communicating the Value of Place and Project-Based Learning:
A Look at Verdi EcoSchool

Conversation with Ayana, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Verdi EcoSchool — the first K-8 urban place and project-based urban farm school in the southeastern United States.
November 3, 2020

College Admissions: Moving From Transactional to Transformational

Conversation with Edgar Montes, Director of Higher-Education Engagement: “College admissions is too often a very complex and overly transactional process. We sometimes don’t talk about the transformational process that needs to happen during the application and admissions process...”
October 1, 2020

Student Voices: Learn from Mastery Learners

On September 24, 2020 student panelists at MTC member schools shared their experiences with mastery learning and how it has prepared them for college, career, and life.
September 29, 2020

Higher Ed Voices: College Admissions in Context

MTC Webinar on October 2, featuring Angel Pérez, CEO of NACAC, is open to the public.
September 18, 2020

Future of College Admissions: Perspectives of Mastery Learners

Student panelists to share their experiences with mastery learning and how it has prepared them for college, career, and life.
September 2, 2020

Mastery Transcript Consortium® (MTC) Announces Full Availability of Mastery Transcript® Version 1.0

Mastery Transcript Consortium®, the network of member high schools who are together introducing a new digital high school transcript based on mastery learning, today announced the launch of the full Mastery Transcript® version 1.0.
August 24, 2020

Assessment Design

Greg Curtis participated in MTC's spring Online Member Symposium, delivering two sessions on assessment, designing qualitative learning goals, and reframing the learning environment. The following is the second in his related "MTC Insights: Assessment” series.
August 19, 2020

MTC Voices: Student Profile

Rising senior at Winooski High School, Evelyn Monje, shares her experience with mastery learning, her excitement about using the Mastery Transcript this year as she applies to college, and a range of work she does in and out of school.
July 10, 2020

Letter to Members and Friends — from the CEO

As the academic year gets into full swing, there are several key initiatives that MTC is advancing with its network of nearly 300 member schools. In particular, this is the...