173: Learning Couture: A Conversation with Andrea Stewart on Competency-Based Education

aarmau@gmail.comMay 9, 2023Uncategorized

In this episode, I talk to Andrea Stewart, the founder and CEO of Learning Couture, a company that focuses on customizing learning experiences for educators and students. Andrea shares her challenges and goals in creating deeper learning opportunities for both educators and students, as well as her insights on the changing nature of living, learning, and working in society. She also discusses the importance of involving various stakeholders in designing a portrait or profile of a graduate and the rapid expansion of competency-based education across the country and around the world.

 

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Direct Link: https://coffeechug.simplecast.com/episodes/173

 

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Show Notes:

Topics:

  • Who is Andrea Stewart?
  • What is her origin story?
  • What is Learning Couture and why is this work important?
  • What is deeper learning and  why it’s so important for teachers and students to tackle real-world situations?
  • How can creating a Profile of a Graduate help schools and districts set the stage for deeper learning? How is a profile or portrait different from typical mission and vision statements?
  • Teaching is pretty heavy right now. As districts shift to a focus on deeper learning competencies, how do they keep this movement from becoming “one more thing” for educators?
  • What do listeners need to know about competency-based education–where did it come from and where is it going?
  • A key point is how our education system was designed at a time and based on the needs of a factory model. Why doesn’t this model fit for today’s learners and today’s economy?
  • Undoing 150 years of how we do education seems daunting. How do districts and schools might start their journey? What do they need to be successful and what might be standing in their way?
  • How do we see AI playing a role in helping bring about the changes you’ve described today? We discuss examples of how AI is already being used in education and how it might be used in the future?

Key takeaways from this conversation include:

  • Despite feeling like change isn’t happening rapidly in education, there are growing movements and momentum picking up.
  • COVID-19 has played a role in accelerating some changes within the education system.
  • AI tools have the potential to help educators create more personalized lesson plans and experiences for their students.

If you are interested in learning more about how to customize learning experiences for yourself or others, you don’t want to miss this episode!

About Our Guest

Andrea Stewart has 12 years in personalized, competency-based learning and 25 years in education, both PK-12 and in teacher/administrator preparation. She leads transformational change with schools, districts, education service/state agencies, institutions of higher education, and via national conferences and cross-state partnerships/consultation. Andrea co-authored the Aurora Institute’s 2022 report, Teachers Making the Shift to Equitable, Learner-Centered Education: Harnessing Mental Models, Motivations and Moves, and supports leaders with strategic planning for and implementation of these key levers for change. As Learning Couture, LLC’s founder and CEO, she created the organization’s methodology and tool set for learning redesign, and works closely with partner-clients to ensure they are supported in their learning journey. Part of this work includes leading districts in the design and implementation of a portrait/profile of a graduate, which then serves as the compass for school improvement, reimagining graduation outcomes, empowering learners, and transforming education systems.

Andrea served on the Iowa Department of Education’s CBE Task Force, CBE Collaborative, and Design Team where she led the state’s competency design and assessment process. Andrea also served on the Midwest Comprehensive Center’s Cross-state CBE Consortium, where she co-created micro-credential quality criteria/tools, and contributed to multiple technical advisory groups for the Aurora Institute’s National 2017 Summit on K-12 Competency-Based Education. Her work in competency-based education began in 2011 where she led pilot implementation of standards-based assessment and reporting and competency-based education in an Iowa district. Prior to this work, Andrea taught high school English for 12 years. She holds a BA in English Education from the University of Iowa, an MA in Teacher Leadership from Morningside College, and an EdS in Education Administration from Drake University.

Connect with Andrea

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andrea–stewart146
Twitter: @ajs_stewart

Emerging Patterns

In this episode, we also explore some of the emerging patterns that Andrea has observed in her work and research. These include:

  • The need for more experiential learning opportunities within education systems.
  • A shift towards focusing on learning instead of time spent in classrooms.
  • The importance of starting with “why” when implementing changes in education.
  • Building a network or community of experts and practitioners to support each other through these changes.
  • Adopting an agile mindset to iterate quickly, fail forward, and build successes incrementally.

Key Moments

Here are some of the key moments from this conversation that you don’t want to miss:

  1. “I’m a change agent, and I help young and adult learners become agents of change too.”
  2. “In my heart of hearts, I’m a designer, I’m a builder, I’m a creator.”
  3. “We want our young learners to have [an experience] that’s really empowering.”
  4. “The future of living learning and working is unpredictable.”
  5. “We can’t predict the jobs that are going to be around in five and ten years from now.”
  6. “The momentum is really picking up and what often felt like these little, maybe tiny bright spots here and there were, you’re starting to hear more and more stories of like the movements happening.”
  7. “Competency-based [education] is a disruptor in terms of its blowing up seat time.”
  8. “We need continuous improvement in school… we also need discontinuous improvement, which means there’s been some disruptor put in place.”

Listener Challenge:

We challenge you to think about how you can customize your own learning experiences or help others do the same. What are some of the competencies that you want to develop or improve? How can you design a learning pathway that suits your needs and interests? How can you involve other stakeholders in your learning journey? How can you measure your progress and celebrate your achievements?

💬 Share your thoughts and ideas with us on social media and tagging us. We would love to hear from you and learn from your experiences!

Resources From The Show:

Favorite Ideas from the Conversation:

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