How will I know if I am moving in the right direction?

Maybe you’re just starting. Maybe you’re one year in. No matter where you are on the path toward redesigning learning, you will need to pause often and take stock of where you are. What’s going well? What’s not? Where are you against the goals you have set? The important thing to remember here is this: change is inevitable, and so is failure. It does not necessarily mean that you are off track when (not if) things aren’t going the way you thought they might, if your idea of what’s most important is changing, or if something fails. The path of change is always bumpy. And, if you are responsive to your community and to your learning, then it’s reasonable to expect that plans will have to shift along the way. So as you engage in the work, check yourself against your vision, have clear ways to collect feedback and data from your community, and be willing and ready to adjust course.

The 16 Quality Principles of Competency-Based Education can help you reflect along the way.

Questions to Consider

  • What continuous improvement systems do you have in place? Are you using them? How are you soliciting feedback from stakeholders?
  • What do your data tell you? What successes can you build on? What unexpected findings introduce new knowledge or perspective? What’s not working that needs to be adjusted?
  • Are you working toward our vision? Where are you relative to your vision for the future?
  • How are you communicating progress to your stakeholders? As you make adjustments and changes, how are ensuring people understand?
  • Who’s owning the work? Do you have distributed leadership models in place? Are they working effectively and efficiently?

Resources