“Do no harm,” was my grad school professor’s advice about being an educator. When I reflect on some of the decisions I have made as a teacher since then, I know that although my intentions were good, I actually did some harm. I had to make daily judgments that could affect a student’s future, and since I am human and make mistakes just as my students do, I have often asked myself, “Did I do the right thing?” One English 101 student, “Jake,” still haunts my memories. Jake was pleasant...

Many educators can relate to the uncomfortable feeling of “passing” students while knowing that they are not ready to advance to whatever comes next: a higher-level course, college, or a career. Many have also had to “fail” students and make them repeat an entire course when perhaps those students might have learned and succeeded had they had more time and individualized support. These educators might come across literature about competency-based education (CBE) and find the ideas interesting...

I failed every math class that I took in high school the first time around. I was not a bad student, but I struggled with mathematics and became less motivated with each poor test score. When my teachers forced me to retake the classes during summer school, something revolutionary happened: I became an A-plus student. Being able to focus solely on one subject gave me more time to process the concepts, and I had different teachers who presented the material in new ways.

Writing a quality multiple-choice assessment is an art form that takes considerable time and skill.  Those who have not attempted to write one might not appreciate the difficulty of authoring three answer choices for each question that are 100% incorrect but still seem plausible. It takes an incredible effort to carefully craft items and ensure that performance on a multiple-choice assessment is reflective of students’ knowledge—not their ability to use clues on carelessly worded items...

Viewing students as customers who deserve and demand a quality learning experience and evidence to show employers that they have developed valuable skills to a level of competence upon graduation, we applied service design principles to the design and development of a CBE initiative. Service design is a methodology for creating user‐centered services that takes into account the customer experience holistically, ensuring that all aspects of a service work together as one to give the customer the best possible experience

Principals often have the final say in what types of professional learning school staff receive and which teachers get to attend professional development (PD) events off campus. We know some forms of professional learning opportunities, such as coaching, peer observation, or book studies, are crucial elements of a continuous improvement plan. However, sending teachers to a one-shot, off-campus professional development event that is not clearly connected to school improvement goals can be like ta