top of page

Competency Tracker Form: What Is It?

Introduction

​

The Competency Tracker Form (CTF) is essentially a gradebook, tailored specifically to world language classrooms that strive to use competency-based and standards-based approaches to instruction and assessment. It isolates and monitors three core areas, Proficiency, Course Content, and Participation, and calculates final course grades. The CTF has several critical functions:

 

  1. For students to be familiar with the curricular goals and outcomes of the course

  2. To be able to easily identify  a student's degrees of competency (i.e. strengths and deficiencies) as they relate to these goals and outcomes

  3. For instructors and students to strengthen their communication and relationship

  4. To provide a path for a more accurate and individualized learner plan that works toward developing competency in all curriculum of the course

  5. To inform the instructor using multiple data points collected on whether or not a student met the curricular expectations of the course

  6. To prepare students for subsequent coursework

 

 

How Does the Competency Tracker Form Work?

​

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Core Area One: Proficiency 

​

The first core area on the CTF is Proficiency. This section of the CTF starts with a simplified first-person Can-Do statement, or Proficiency Goal, that describes what students should be able to do with their overall language before the course ends.

​

Here, students can also access links to the rubric score descriptors and proficiency samples of where they need to be. 


During the semester, students take various proficiency assessments, and the instructor assigns and records overall proficiency rubric scores ranging from one to five, three being minimal competency. These proficiency scores, over time, are charted to visually map progress toward competency. By the end of a particular course, students need to demonstrate a minimum overall language proficiency as defined by the rubric.

​

Note: Whether or not a student is competent in overall proficiency is not an average of prior scores; the student cannot be penalized for the normal process of language acquisition or scores indicating not yet competent. In other words, it is normal during the Developmental Stage of proficiency to not have demonstrated minimal proficiency yet (if this were the case, the placement process would have caught this; the student would have been placed into the subsequent course, bypassing the current course). Rather, the instructor can determine the competency level based on data recorded from within the Competency Stage. If the student lacks competence in general proficiency, the student will need to repeat the class, independent from whether or not they are competent in the next core areas: course content.

​

Core Area Two: Course Content

​

The Competency Tracker also supports development of specific course content in the form of isolated skills or tasks, or conceptual knowledge. While there may be overlap between the notion of proficiency and course content, here we are are most likely referencing the student learning outcomes. On this category, students must demonstrate competency in each outcome. This expectation is not unrealistic, as perfection is not the expectation, but, rather, competency is. In other words, on a rubric scale of 1-5, with a 1 being the lowest, a 5 the highest, and a 3 the minimal level of competency, students must demonstrate a 3 in each outcome. Therefore, it is critical that instructors provide students at least two-three opportunities during the course for students to demonstrate they can use or know each outcome. This can be done through a strong reassessment plan, either in the form of structured, controlled retake opportunities, or testing that outcome again on the next assessment.

 

Students take the assessment and instructors record the scores of the assessed outcome on the Competency Tracker Form. If students receive a score indicating a deficiency, this opens dialogue between student and instructor to develop an action plan for improvement on the deficient outcome. Students meet with instructors to identify the deficient outcome, discuss focused strategies for improvement, and retest at a later time as indicated in the reassessment plan. By the end of the course, should have ample data to determine if the student is competent in each course outcome.

 

Depending on the outcome, instructors have the option of either (a) requiring an average score of three or higher for each outcome by the end of the course or (b) deeming a student competent at any point during the course on an outcome that has been met once with a three or higher. This is ultimately the instructor’s decision, but should always ask themselves: Is the student competent in this outcome or not?

 

There is a column that automatically calculates average scores for each outcome, and transfers this average to a gauge chart so students can easily visualize their strengths and deficiencies. Of course, instructors can manually override the Competency Tracker Form’s automatic calculations should they need to.

​

Core Area Three: Participation

​

The Competency Tracker additionally allows for isolation and monitoring of to two important attributes of participation important to successful language learning: homework and in-class participation. This area is partitioned and tracked separately from the Proficiency and Course Content core areas.

​

Here, students must maintain a score of three (minimal competency) or higher on participation and homework expectations during the semester.

​

Grading

​

The Competency Tracker Form easily accommodates grading. Instructors simply ensure that students are competent in all three core areas of Proficiency, Course Content, and Participation and, if so, issue a Pass grade. If letter grades are preferred, instructors should use the Letter Grade option of the Competency Tracker Form. This version contains embedded algorithms that automatically configure a letter grade AFTER competency is met in all three core areas.

​

Note: At the end of the course, students who met the Proficiency and Course Content core areas yet did not meet the Participation core area requirement could still pass the class. This is the instructor's decision. The reasoning here is that students may indeed be able to meet the Proficiency and Course Content standards; their level of in-class interaction and homework decisions, while they are important for language growth, are not the sole reasons for language growth, especially when language acquisition is so complex. It is possible, however, that the instructor or program would have the option to hold the student back if Participation core area deficiencies are severe, however that may be defined.

​

Note: “Weighing a pig more often doesn’t make it fatter.” Assessment alone cannot build proficiency. However, this collection of instructor resources (Competency Tracker, Authentic Assessment Template, Authentic Assessment Builder, Rubric Creator, and Syllabus Policy Creator) and communicative language teaching (CLT) calls attention to proficiency and the notions of competency. In other words, when instructors and students are aware of and can isolate with pin-point accuracy individual strengths and deficiencies, then they can are able to better work together toward competency. The communication and action that results from sound instruction and assessment, with the use of the CTF, does lead to proficiency.

​

Competency-Tracker Form

Competency-Tracker Form

Watch Now

Interested in professional development credit? Click here to learn how to get a certificate of completion.

Copyright © 2018 BY PROFICIENCYBUILDER

© Copyright
bottom of page