Using a Competency Development Process Model in Higher Education

What if educational programs designed curriculum with the end in mind, teaching and assessing only the knowledge and skills necessary for success in the workplace and broader life applications? Competency-Based Education (CBE) provides an answer to questions such as this one that key stakeholders are asking.

Dr. Nancy Latham currently serves as the Executive Director of the Council of Teacher Education and a Research Associate Professor in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). For the past ten years she has served as a lead consultant on state-wide early childhood employment pathway efforts in Illinois and teacher preparation pathway competency development and implementation. Dr. Latham has published and presented extensively on teacher attrition, specifically the impacts of teacher preparation model on teacher persistence in the field and co-authored and edited Voices from the Field: Collaborative Innovations in Early Childhood Educator Preparation (Bernoteit, Darragh Ernst, & Latham, 2016) which overviews the state-wide experience of competency implementation for early childhood credentialing in Illinois.

Prior to joining UIUC she served as an administrator and Early Childhood Professor at Illinois State University. In addition, she was a tenured community college professor and a public-school teacher and administrator. Her external leadership has included serving as President of the Illinois Association of Early Childhood Teacher Education and representing the public university colleges of education on the Illinois State Educator Professional Licensure Board (SEPLB). She is currently leading an Illinois State Board of Education project to revise the state teaching standards to a competency-based system. Her research interests focus on teacher employment pathways and trends, teacher persistence in the field, and the impacts of teacher preparation models and practices on teacher retention and attrition.

Dr. Johnna Darragh Ernst is a Distinguished Professor of Early Childhood Education at Heartland Community College in Normal, Illinois. For the past several years, her work has focused on collaboratively developing competency-based pathways supporting early childhood practitioners in Illinois and serving as a lead consultant in developing the Illinois ECE Competency-Based Assessment System. Together with Dr. Nancy Latham, Dr. Darragh Ernst coordinated the movement of seven Illinois credentials to a competency-based system. In addition to publishing numerous articles, she has authored two early childhood textbooks focusing on inclusion and family engagement. She co-authored and edited Voices from the Field: Collaborative Innovations in Early Childhood Educator Preparation (Bernoteit, Darragh Ernst, & Latham, 2016), which focuses on the Illinois effort to develop a competency-based model of early childhood educator preparation.

Her current external leadership relating to competency-based education includes serving as a tri-chair on the Illinois Professional Development Advisory Council and as a member of the Illinois State Competency Leadership Team. She is on the Steering Committee for the Illinois State Board of Education's project, which serves to move state teaching standards to competencies. She has also worked to support the development and implementation of Walden University's innovative Tempo Learning competency-based education program. Within Heartland, Dr. Darragh Ernst has created several competency-based learning pathways designed to maximize student access, decrease student cost, and minimize time to credential and degree.

Dr. Tiffany Freeze has extensive experience building CBE programs in higher education and work-based settings. She currently serves as the Chief Assessment Officer of The QuILTSS Institute in which she leads the design and build of competency-based education (CBE) programs. Additionally, she serves as a principal consultant with the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN), working with institutions nationwide to design CBE programs. She is an experienced and credentialed leader of assessment centers and virtually delivered behavior-based assessment using the latest technologies. Tiffany co-directs C-BEN's Competency-Based Assessment Collaboratory project, in partnership with 20+ institutional leaders, working to release new assessment resources. Freeze also served as the 2020 President for the Tennessee Association for Behavior Analysis. In this role, Freeze led the organization alongside the Executive Committee to hold regional and state-level meetings, advocate for members, provide workshops, inform legislation, among other priorities in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis.

Prior to her current role, Freeze served as Assistant Dean in the College of Professional Studies at Lipscomb University where she led the Curriculum and Academic Team to the launch of PACE, Lipscomb's 126-credit hour competency-based program. She also served as an assistant professor, administrator of Lipscomb's CORE Assessment Center, and engaged multiple employer partnerships. She spent six years studying at The University of Memphis earning the Master of Arts and Education Specialist degrees in School Psychology, and the Doctor of Education degree in Applied Behavior Analysis. She is recognized as a Nationally Certified School Psychologist and Board-Certified Behavior Analyst with doctoral designation.