What is competency-based education?
With a focus on practical knowledge and relevant professional skills you can use in the workplace right away, Capella offers competency-based education that can help you prepare for your career. We outline what you’ll learn in our university outcomes, which reflect general employability skills, program learning outcomes for your profession, and course competencies to help you pursue your goals.
The benefits of competency-based education
Your time is valuable, and your career ambitions are important. Our competency-based curriculum offers skills that are relevant to your industry, and the course assessments are authentic, so that what you learn is resume ready and useful in the workplace right away.
Stay relevant with a career-centered curriculum
Curriculum is designed in partnership with faculty who have real-world experience to help develop courses that are aligned with professional skills valued in your field.
Gain practical knowledge and skills
Your assessments are designed to measure your ability to demonstrate competency in relevant career skills, not just your ability to pass exams.
Apply what you learn today
Our courses are designed to help teach you the skills that are relevant in your industry, so you can start applying them right away in your workplace.
How does the competency-based education approach work?
Assessment: An assignment that measures your knowledge through practical application. For example, students may be asked to build a business case or make recommendations based on a company’s quarterly reports.
Competencies: Knowledge and skills that students are expected to gain from a course. To move on, students must demonstrate mastery of competencies.
Criteria: The elements in an assessment on which students will be evaluated. These are outlined in the assessment rubric.
Grading: Students are evaluated based on how well they demonstrate competency in each of the criteria.
Competency map: A personalized dashboard that shows students their academic progress on each competency. This helps to identify strengths and areas that need more focus.
More questions about competency-based education? Start here.
Competency-based education is a learning approach that focuses on how well you apply your knowledge of key competencies rather than the time you spend learning or memorizing facts. It’s how we deliver relevant and efficient programs for adult learners with specific career goals. It works like this: we build programs that can help you develop relevant skills and knowledge for your field; you display mastery and practical application of the course competencies. The result is real skills that you can take straight from the courseroom to the workplace.
“The material that Capella used in their classes provided real-world examples of IT industries. I felt that these gave me greater insight into not only how things work but how to think more strategically.”
Rather than cramming for a test, you’ll demonstrate specific skills and knowledge to show what you’ve learned. Learning resources may include readings and interactive activities. In the assessments you will demonstrate competencies that are aligned to your industry. As you progress in your studies, you’ll continue to build a foundation of knowledge and skills that you can apply to your career. Connect with us to learn more about competency-based education.
The syllabus for your courses outlines the competencies that students are expected to master. Learning resources may include readings and interactive activities, with coursework structured to give you experiences that are relevant to the workplace. The ultimate goal is to show your mastery of competencies that align to real-world work skills and knowledge in your assessments. Our enrollment team can help you learn more.
Each student brings different strengths and experiences to their program. Ultimately, competency-based education is about demonstrating mastery of a subject, with flexibility in how you manage time.
Here’s what that might look like at Capella. If you enroll in a program in the GuidedPath learning format, you can look ahead in the schedule and balance your other life priorities according to how challenging the competencies are each week. Or, if you enroll in your program in the FlexPath learning format, you have flexibility to complete assessments at your own pace and move on to the next course when you’re ready. This can be a game-changer when you’re balancing work, family and other commitments.
To different degrees, yes, depending on your professional and academic experiences and which learning format you choose.
Programs that use a competency-based education framework require you to demonstrate mastery of the course competencies – whether that’s based in previous experience or new information depends on the individual. Regardless of your professional and academic experiences, your choice of learning format can also determine how quickly you can complete courses.
- With GuidedPath, the course structure, requirements and deadlines are planned for you. However, your personal experiences may mean that you’re more familiar with certain topics, allowing you to complete some coursework faster.
- With FlexPath, you can earn your degree on your schedule and potentially use your previous experience to progress faster. You set your own deadlines, demonstrate mastery of course competencies and move on to the next course at the pace that works for you.
Competency-based education in action
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