Project Info
Project Description
2016 Program
The Close It Summit turns conversations into action. It creates a unique environment where business and education leaders, workforce and youth development innovators, social impact organizations and policy experts convene to explore, identify and create new solutions and pathways.
The Close It Summit program will contain sessions that are practical, action-oriented and focus on concrete, transferable guidance that will inform the shift to competency-based education, training, hiring, policymaking, and funding strategies. An effective session will result in participants walking away with increased knowledge and a plan for how to effectively use this knowledge to improve skills and abilities in a way that leads to innovation and improvement.
This year’s summit will focus on the “Shift” to competency-based education, training and hiring. The U.S. Department of Education refers to “Competency-based” as programs that transition away from seat time, in favor of a structure that creates flexibility, allows students to progress as they demonstrate mastery of academic and technical content, regardless of time, place, or pace of learning. Competency-based strategies provide flexibility in the way that credit can be earned or awarded, and provides personalized learning opportunities. This type of learning leads to better learner engagement because the content is relevant to each person and tailored to their unique needs. It also leads to better outcomes because the pace of learning is customized to each individual.
The Close It Summit is organized around four (4) strands: Employment Technologies shifting the space, competency-based assessments shifting the space, employers shifting their hiring practices, and higher education shifting their strategies to competencies. Each strand will address the following competencies:
Employment technologies
- Applied research and interactive technologies that assist employers, job seekers, learners, and Workforce Investment Boards in the use of competencies and skills in the pre-employment and hiring process.
Competency-based assessments
- Learner advancement based upon mastery of academic and technical standards as demonstrated by meeting performance standards on assessments measuring competency on standards. Competencies are explicit, measurable, and transferable learning objectives.
Employers shifting to competency-based hiring practices
- Competency-based hiring is grounded in the identification of core competencies required for success and the subsequent evaluation of each candidate’s demonstration of those competencies in their learning credentials and past experiences.
Higher education shifts in strategies to competency-based systems
- Competency-based degree programs focused more on what is learned, rather than where or how long the learning takes place. Instead of evaluating progress based on the amount of time spent in a classroom (using the credit hour, which is the default standard for measuring progress), students receive college credit based on their actual demonstration of industry-aligned skills learned.