Overview
In November 2009, President Obama launched the Educate to Innovate initiative to move American students from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade. Recognizing that great teaching is part of any child’s success, President Obama also issued a challenge to the nation to recruit and prepare more than 100,000 new teachers over the next decade. Rising to this challenge, Valdosta State University (VSU) has turned to an innovative Competency-based Education (CBE) initiative delivered online via the Brightspace platform to raise the technical skill levels of elementary teachers currently working in the State of Georgia.
Challenge
- School system dissatisfied with the existing endorsement programs offered by the state
Solution
- Using Brightspace to capture critical analytics on student interactions
Result
- Ability to perform a study that is in-depth, discipline-centric and authentic
- Teaching teachers the technologies in K-5 classrooms

The Challenge
While VSU staff explored possibilities surrounding CBE, Scheffler and the school’s Dean were approached by the Valdosta City School System to partner in the delivery of a science endorsement program, allowing K-5 elementary teachers to strengthen and enhance their competency levels for teaching elementary science. The School System was dissatisfied with the existing endorsement programs offered by the state, and were seeking a better option.
“As those discussions evolved, we saw this particular endorsement program as a great fit for us to pilot using a CBE model,” says Scheffler. “Each endorsement has three courses so they are small. The curriculum could be completed in a short timeframe, and we had a school system ready to sign on and provide ongoing feedback. We saw it as a win-win for VSU and the schools.”

VSU has been a D2L Brightspace user for several years. It was first introduced to the learning management system through a state systems-wide learning initiative. Brightspace is used university-wide, and all classrooms are provided with access to the LMS for face-to-face, blended, and strictly online learning. For the CBE pilot, VSU staff arranged for a separate instance of the platform allowing them to try and test out new features unique to CBE.
“We were looking for a lot of flexibility. We knew CBE would be different from the average online course. We needed a platform that could be shaped in a way to achieve the model we were trying to build. Based on our knowledge of the Brightspace platform, we knew it could be molded to the goals and objectives of the program,” says Vincent King-Spezzo, Senior Online Instructional Designer, Centre for eLearning, VSU.
In CBE, content personalization is key. “Our students are working professionals, so they have to be able to accomplish a course where time is not a limiting factor. Brightspace allows our science endorsement students to progress in highly personalized ways, while still capturing the metrics we need to demonstrate the student has fully accomplished the course and achieved mastery,” says King-Spezzo.

The Solution
To support the instructional team, King-Spezzo and his VSU colleagues utilized Brightspace to capture critical analytics on student interactions. This includes the number of times logged into the system, the number of active discussions, content modules accessed by date, assessments in the Dropbox, and so on. VSU also used Brightspace Intelligent agents to streamline communications between the instructor and the student.
“These agents allowed us to automate certain routine aspects of communication, such as notifications, so instructors could focus on higher value, higher level communication with their students,” notes Spezzo-King.
Kathy Sundin, online communications coordinator for VSU’s Center for eLearning also stepped in to create a custom web front end. As a result, when a student enters the CBE course, they view a streamlined, simplified interface solely focused on CBE.
“We wanted to put all the technology in the background so the students could just focus on learning,” says Sundin.
Finally, VSU worked with D2L to overlay the CBE program’s Mastery III and IV grade scheme over the traditional number grade found in the Brightspace system; color coding and simplifying the new CBE grading format so students could view their progress at a glance. When students submit work via Dropbox, the assessor uses the Brightspace rubric to assign a level of mastery on every single criterion. This rubric provides students with an acknowledgement, and feedback on their progress.
"Our students are working professionals, so they have to be able to accomplish a course where time is not a limiting factor. Brightspace allows our science endorsement students to progress in highly personalized ways, while still capturing the metrics we need to demonstrate the student has fully accomplished the course and achieved mastery."
Vincent King-Spezzo, Senior Online Instructional Designer, Centre for eLearning
The Results
“In reflection it was smart to start small. We didn’t want to get into issues that would not necessarily advance our understanding of CBE,” says Dr. Scheffler. “We were able to keep the pilot highly interactive, with teachers coming in to see us monthly to provide feedback.”
Scheffler admits there’s been a learning curve throughout this CBE pilot.
“There’s a lot we have learned on the operational and functional sides, in terms of curriculum design, and we continue to learn about accessibility. We said this was what we wanted with this first program, to go with a form of backward design, start with the competency and then have it flow through to the mastery. We’ve also found we had to trim out a lot of the activities in order to work efficiently and strategically through the design model. Through this we have learned less is more.”
Through the VSU CBE pilot, elementary teachers in the State of Georgia are able to perform a study that is in depth, discipline-centric and authentic, and yet provides them with the flexibility to fit their schooling around work and life obligations. It’s also driving teachers to use the very same technologies school systems are now putting into K-5 students’ hands.
“Today, we expect teachers to use Google in the classroom and set up students for personalized learning. By using Brightspace to learn in a technologically friendly way, our hope is they’ll ultimately teach this way as well,” says Scheffler.
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