From the article: "Weise and Christensen note in their new mini-book, Hire Education: Mastery, Modularization, and the Workforce Revolution (61 page PDF) that unlike other trends like MOOCs that have received 'tremendous fanfare,' online competency-based education stands out as the innovation to most likely disrupt higher education." They write (p.18) "Competency-based programs have no time-based unit. Learning is fixed, and time is variable; pacing is flexible." That makes them perfect for online learning. This trend, they write, will force a rethinking of the value proposition of universities. "The value system of academic scholarship is so skewed that research findings are hidden from public view." (p.24) I think they're mostly right, but we need to advance the model past the point where learning can be defined by competencies, or develop much better and more efficient means of identifying competencies and decigning systems to teach and evaluate for them. See also this EDUCAUSE report on competency-based education.
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