Connecting More Educators with Degrees

For adult learners, real-life experience and knowledge can sometimes make school coursework a bit redundant. If they’ve been working in a childcare facility for 20 years, for instance, early education courses might be filled with things they learned a long time ago and have been practicing daily. If they’ve spent the past decade reading about the Civil War, their history classes could feel a little bit basic.

But competency-based education (CBE) is different. Instead of demanding that students spend a set amount of time in a classroom, moving through the course material at the instructor’s pace—such as a week on this topic; three days on this topic—CBE-based courses at NECC can be completed online at the student’s own pace. For coursework that’s old hat, the student can move through it fast. For ideas and concepts that are new to them, they can slow down. Flexible course start dates and a learning coach help students make the most of this self-directed opportunity even more.

Now, NECC is offering a first-of-its-kind associate degree program where students majoring in Early Childhood Education (ECE) will have the option to take all required degree and certificate courses in the CBE model.

The CBE ECE program at NECC is not only providing another path for a broader group of learners to earn a degree and advance early childhood education but is also leading the way nationally for doing so: It’s the first such offering in the United States from a public college or university.

Programs like CBE can help “significantly increase success outcomes for traditionally under-served student populations,” says Dr. Winifred Hagan, senior associate commissioner for strategic planning and public program approval at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, which funded the program’s development. Since CBE allows self-paced learning, it lets students who might be busy with real-life demands, like work and family, complete their coursework when and how it’s convenient for them.

Eight CBE courses are offered at Northern Essex for the fall of 2022; six are general education classes, such as English Composition I. Any student can enroll in those CBE general education classes, regardless of major. Work has also started to create a CBE healthcare technician certificate.

With CBE, mastery of the subject is more important than deadlines.

“Especially since the pandemic when we have all become more flexible with deadlines, I have emphasized students' ability to address the questions more than meeting exact deadlines,” says NECC history professor Stephen Russell, who has developed and offered CBE history courses.

Although Russell says he’s still learning and experimenting with the model, he believes that CBE has a lot to offer. Student success rate has improved from roughly 60% of students earning a grade of C or better to close to 75-80%, he says.

In addition to pacing the course differently, CBE has even shifted the way Russell evaluates students’ understanding of the material and ideas he’s teaching.

“Ordinarily history focuses on the ‘story,’ for example, the progression of events during the time period covered. What I learned from CBE is to focus on specific historical questions that are of relevance to society today,” he says.

“For example: Why, over 150 years after the end of slavery, is racism a persistent problem in our society? What are the deep roots of the Trump movement and the 1/6/21 insurrection? Why, in a wealthy country, is poverty so persistent? These questions come first, and the ‘story’ provides the evidence students need to address the questions.”

Portions of the CBE ECE degree program will take a similarly non-conventional approach to assessment. For instance, although students have a required 330-hour in-classroom practicum within program, this can be done at a student’s workplace, and observations can be completed by the supervising college faculty member virtually.

Offering the CBE program within the ECE major is also significant, Hagan notes.

“Early educators represent the most racially and linguistically diverse demographic among all of the education sectors,” she says. “They are the least qualified in the aggregate, and also have limited access to creditbearing certificate and degree programs.”

Increasing access to credit-bearing certificate and degree programs for educators through CBE also has the potential to change outcomes for children and early childhood education at large.

“Higher-level early educator qualifications are significantly correlated with higher quality early childhood education and care for children, including program structure, language development, and reasoning abilities,” Hagan says. “This very successful and promising innovation was created by and for early childhood educators. The Department of Higher Education is proud to have funded it and is eager to watch it grow.”

This story was written by Alex Pecci ’02