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Competency-Based Education (CBE)

Their Path, Their Pace, Their Progress: Students Focus on Mastery, Not "Seat Time".

WonderED K12 Academy curriculum is a skill-focused set of research-based competencies.  Students not only experience deeper learning but also practice and master these skills. And students learn on their chosen path, at a time that works for them, from anywhere, any time, in a fully accredited online school.

Competency-Based Education: Key Characteristics

  1. Students are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning. 

  2. Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields timely, relevant, and actionable evidence.

  3. Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.

  4. Students progress based on evidence of mastery, not seat time.

  5. Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing.

  6. Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy.

  7. Rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measurable, and transferable.

Competencies and Topics

Sample Learning Guide

CBE Philosophy

  • Competency-based education is a replacement for the systems, structures, and pedagogies of the traditional system.

  • Competency-based education is driven by the equity-seeking need to transform our educational system so all students can and will learn through full engagement and support and through authentic, rigorous learning experiences inside and outside the classroom.

  • Equity is a central goal of advancing competency-based education systems.

  • Communities that aspire to achieve equity must work toward implementing all elements of a competency-based education system.

  • All students can learn and must be challenged, believed in, and supported to achieve deep learning aligned with common, high expectations across the education system.

  • Educators need to organize innovative learning environments around the needs of students who learn in different ways and in different time frames.

  • Students need to learn academic knowledge and the skills and dispositions to apply it (such as a growth mindset, self-regulation, social-emotional learning, and habits of success).

  • Learning happens anytime and anywhere.

  • Deeper learning is collaborative and socially embedded.

  • Transparency of learning expectations and assessment results is essential for creating a culture of learning and accountability.

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