Competency-based learning challenges students to use knowledge in problem solving
Creativity, critical thinking and the ability to work in groups allow you to articulate the information available, in a collaborative way, to answer real life questions
The changes brought about by the digital revolution have had great impacts on all sectors of society. In education, one of the biggest transformations concerns
the relationship of people with knowledge. If, until then, data and information were
less accessible, the internet and new communication and information technologies have profoundly changed this scenario.
“The digital revolution has exponentially democratized access to knowledge and its creation. Affordable or free, high quality and infinite quantity of content is available to anyone, anytime, anywhere ”, says Fernando Shayer, one of the founding partners and CEO of Camino Education.
According to him, going to school today to have access to certain contents and then being evaluated by how much he was able to memorize or reproduce in exams does not make sense anymore and does not dialogue with a world where there is so much information available. In this context, there is a question of what, in fact, the school has to deliver to society, that is, what is the training that it should provide to its students. "Competency learning is related to this social demand".
Competent teaching develops the human side
One of the premises of this learning model is that it is not enough to have knowledge, but to know how to apply it in solving real-life problems. For this, it is necessary to develop socio-emotional competences and skills, which allow for adequate research, relating the data, information and knowledge necessary to solve problems, as well as, especially, building a vision of potential solutions in network with other people. "The big difference is to access the available information and articulate it to solve problems in a collaborative way", explains the executive director.
For Shayer, with the advance of artificial intelligence, the tendency is that tasks each
less simple to be solved by machines, and that today's students differentiate themselves, throughout their professional careers over the next 50 years, by being able to solve more complex questions, for which there is not a single right answer, but multiple possible solutions, built from dialogue and understanding of information widely available to all.
In order to be successful in this, they must have, since today, an adequate training, which enhances, through interaction, what is most human in students. “It is increasingly shown that machines learn better as machines than humans. In order to learn, we humans need to be welcomed and valued in what we have the best evolutionarily: our ability to find innovative network solutions for increasingly complex problems. Competence education is moving in that direction, ”says Shayer.
