Dr. Laurie Dodge, vice chancellor of Institutional Assessment and Planning at Brandman University and vice provost of the university, has been a key figure in the development of the MyPath competency-based education (CBE) program. The university has been testing the beta versions of the program and is planning a full launch this fall. In this podcast, Dodge talks about how Brandman went about creating its version of competency-based education, what students should expect and how it will change higher education. For a video from a student's point of view see Pursuing the American Dream at Brandman. An introduction to the program can be found at www.brandman.edu/mypath.
Transcript
Cindy O'Dell: Welcome to Brandman Speaks. I’m Cindy O’Dell, a member of the Communications Department at Brandman University. Today I’ll be talking with Dr. Laurie Dodge, vice chancellor of institutional assessment and planning, and vice provost of the university. Dr. Dodge is a driving force behind the creation of Brandman’s new competency-based program, a program known around the university as CBE.

Dr. Dodge, I would like to hear your “elevator speech” explanation of competency-based education.

Dr. Laurie Dodge: Thank you, Cindy. So competency-based education is really when the learning is fixed and time is variable. So in our credit-hour program, which is what we’re used to, time is fixed and the learning varies. The other thing I would say in my elevator speech is that the focus is on mastery of the competencies so students must demonstrate that they can do certain things before they can progress further. The other piece that I would add for competency-based education is the quality of the program and the relevance to what workforce needs are asking for.

How did you and others at Brandman go about creating this version of CBE?

So this was the fun part, Cindy. The faculty established the competency-based program based on what I call a framework origin. And the framework origin looked at AAC&U essential learning outcomes, the degree qualification profile, the Department of Labor ONET data and certification.

So let’s back up just a little bit.  Maybe put that in more layman’s terms.

Ok. So the competency-based program really looked at what students need when they graduate, what are the things they must be able to know, understand and do to be successful in the workplace. So we used these frameworks to see what are the knowledge, skills and abilities that students need to then build the program.

Can you give me a quick example of what one of those competencies would look like and how you went about adding up to get to the competency part of it?

So, one of the areas is look at general education. So an example of that might be oral communication. So in oral communication your competency might be able to speak to a specific audience on a certain topic and then in a specific amount of time. So students have to be able to perform and then their speech is evaluated.

Tell me who at Brandman was involved with comping up with the competencies and the ideas for the program.

So the program really started looking at two white papers that Brandman University developed. The first one was looking at degree programs in competency-based education, so the good things about those programs and then the things we knew we wanted to differently. And then we also had a faculty member, instructional designer, who developed a white paper on the pedagogy or teaching strategies for competency-based education. Hadassah Yang in institutional research worked on the models and then Dr. Sara Zaker developed the white paper on the pedagogy.

How is it different from other competency-based programs at other universities?

I think our program is different from the very beginning because of the design.