League for Innovation in the Community College January 2019 | Page 12

COMPETENCE VS. COMPLETION:
Does Passing Equate to Learning?
BY CHER YL HOKE, MAGGI E RICHARDS, ANN RIEDL, AND TINA BURKE
S
cience education is in crisis. Students in STEM programs across higher education
fail, drop out, or change their majors at alarming rates. Two years ago, we
challenged ourselves to do better for our science students.
We implemented competency-based education (CBE) as a means to increase student
learning and success in our courses. CBE is built on the premise that students should
become competent in every outcome in a course. It gives students the opportunity to
master foundational material before moving on to more complex topics. Science courses
are excellent choices for CBE since foundational concepts build both within a course and
in subsequent courses.
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