Your Skills Framework

Your Skills Framework

Skills in LiFT

Your Skills Framework is the collection of competencies, standards and/or skills that you wish your Learners to attain – in a Class, over the course of a Term, over the years your Learners are at your School or District. For each Learner, LiFT creates a Skill Portfolio for each skill in your Skills Framework. When creating Projects, all Evidence assigned can be tagged to specific skills and then evaluated against those tagged skills using rubrics or numerical scoring. Completed Evidence – from multiple classes or even from outside of school – accumulates in a Learner’s Skill Portfolios. Assessment of those Skill Portfolios tracks the Learner’s journey towards mastery of the Skills you’ve included in your Skills Framework.

Taking the long view, it may be helpful to think of your Skills Framework as the set of Skills you wish your Learners to have attained by the time they graduate in order to be successful as they continue into post-secondary education or the workplace. Many schools think of this set of Skills – your Skills Framework – as their Portrait of a Graduate.


The Challenges of Competency-Based Education

A good working definition of Competency-Based Education developed by iNACOL (now the Aurora Institute) and CompetencyWorks includes five elements:

  • Students advance upon demonstrated mastery.
  • Competencies include explicit, measurable, transferable learning objectives that empower students.
  • Assessment is meaningful and a positive learning experience for students.
  • Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.
  • Learning outcomes emphasize competencies that include application and creation of knowledge, along with the development of important skills and dispositions.

Transitioning from the traditional model of education to Competency-Based Education is not easy. Every school is at a different place on their journey towards Competency-Based Education. Some of the challenges that you will likely meet on your path include:

  • Breaking away from the deeply-rooted concepts of time – allowing learners to move at their own speeds, both faster and slower.
  • Striving to support students to advance based on their ability to master a skill or competency, while at the same time needing to provide traditional grades expected by your districts and/or parents.
  • Recognizing that each of your teachers is at a different place of accepting and embracing the changes CBE brings to their understanding of their roles as teachers. Some members of your team may need more support than others.
  • Conceiving of your Skills Framework and Assessment Model in a way that motivates learners at all ages/stages while at the same time providing for progression and depth within a competency. Another way of conceiving this challenge: Is collaboration defined the same for an 8-year-old and a 17-year-old?

There will always be a healthy tension around these challenges, but you are not alone. Your LiFT Team is here to help you navigate through them towards the rewards of learner-centered education. LiFT is designed to meet you where you are, grow with you to where you want to be, all the way to fully learner-centered.


Help Us Understand Your Needs

At an early implementation meeting, your LiFT Team will work with you to identify your needs and make suggestions as you define your Skills Framework.

Some schools already know what they want to include in their Skills Framework and wish to define their competencies themselves. Some schools need help, perhaps even additional Professional Development assistance, to clarify their needs and develop a comprehensive Skills Framework. Some schools start off with a modest collection of global competencies – perhaps MyWays or Casel’s SEL standards – and add to them over time; keep in mind it is always possible to add new competencies, but it can be very difficult to delete existing competencies if learners have already submitted Evidence tagged to them.

LiFT has curated a collection of standards that can easily be implemented if they are what you wish to use. They include:

  • Your state’s CCSS Math Standards
  • Your state’s CCSS ELA Standards
  • Next Gen Science Standards
  • MyWays
  • 4 C’s
  • ISTE Standards
  • Casel SEL
  • CTE Standards


Assessment Using Skill Levels

Assessing a Learner’s progress requires mutually-understood Skill Level criteria between Learner and Teacher. Identifying common assessment Skill Levels or Rubrics allows for consistency across classes and experiences for Learners. “I can…” statements or similar criteria at each level helps learners comprehend your expectations and aspire to achieve greater competency on their progress towards mastery,

Many schools choose 4-5 skill levels, but LiFT is completely flexible and able to implement as many skill levels as you need.

Once your competencies and rubrics have been determined, Your LiFT Team will build your Skills Framework and upload it into LiFT. This process can take up to two weeks.


An Important Tool for You

Your LiFT Team has created a Guide to Portfolio Assessment and Instruction in LiFT that will walk you through the nuances and implications of some decisions that you will need to make about your School's Skills Framework. We recommend that you review this document and use it as a foundational resource for developing your Skills Framework and developing protocols at your school for its application.


Guide to Portfolio Assessment and Instruction in LiFT

Key Takeaways about Your Skills Framework

Your LiFT Team is available to help you identify your needs and define your Skills Framework.

Consider your Skills Framework to embody the skills that you desire to have your learners attain before they graduate.

It is easy to add skills to your framework, but it is difficult to remove skills from your framework without impacting your learners. Better to start smaller and grow as needed over time.

In addition to defining your skills, you need to define the rubrics you will use to assess those skills.





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