Pedagogy 2025

Abstract

Professional programs across higher education face growing pressure to demonstrate both academic rigor and practical relevance. In professional colleges especially, graduates are expected to combine strong disciplinary knowledge with workplace-ready competencies. Competency-based education (CBE) offers a promising framework for meeting this demand. By shifting assessment from grades on assignments toward demonstrated mastery of explicit and transferable skills, CBE strengthens the link between classroom learning and professional practice. Yet in higher education, implementation remains challenging: traditional credit-hour systems reinforce conventional course delivery and grading, students (and faculty) are often unfamiliar or uncomfortable with mastery-based approaches, and most institutional tools are not designed for competencies. This session presents a case study from the Master of Public Administration program at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy (University of Saskatchewan), where course design, assignments, and assessment were restructured around program competencies. Through multiple iterations, a dual-stream grading system emerged as the most effective model. Traditional grades provided continuity and transparency, while a mastery gradebook tracked student progress in acquiring and demonstrating competencies. The innovation of combining both systems made it possible to uncover hidden learning gaps, strengthen assessment, and generate more meaningful feedback for students and instructors alike while also opening the door to innovations such as a co-curricular transcript. This work underscores that CBE is a complex innovation in higher education, and its success requires customized implementation tailored to institutional and program contexts.