We missed posting a blog entry last week because the Nontraditional Education Program’s Instructional Designer and Director were away attending CBExchange, the annual international conference on competency-based education.

When they attended last year, MLC was at the beginning stages of our work with competency-based education. We were not yet approved to offer the CBTE Minor and were still working through the approval process with the Minnesota State Office of Higher Education for the APPLE Elementary Education degree. Our submission of the APPLE El Ed program to the Higher Learning Commission could not move forward until we had approval from the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. We had a growing list of interested learners, but we could not accept applications or enroll learners. We had ideas, but we had little implementation.

What a difference a year has made!

We returned this year with the CBTE Minor approved and with our first cohort of learners enrolled in their courses. We are one step away from approval of the APPLE El Ed program and hope to be able to begin offering courses in that program next year.

The sessions were far too rich to capture everything we learned, but we thought we would share a few of the big takeaways that will inform our work as we continue to build our competency-based education programming.

• CBTE and CBE administrators, faculty, and staff are very giving of their time and talents. Some of the best sessions we attended gave us time to share out our progress and stumbles to learn from one another. Both the Instructional Desginer and the Director have planned follow up meetings with several colleagues at other institutions.
• CBE-Network, the organization that sponsors the conference, emphasized its commitment to building partnerships with federal, state governments and higher education organizations. We look forward to attending sessions throughout the upcoming year through the CBE-Network to learn more.
• Our Instructional Designer attended several sessions about our learning environment, D2L Brightspace. He scheduled follow-up meetings with our D2L support team to find out more about several features and options to support our course development.
• Our Director attended several sessions on project management and models for supporting learners in CBE courses and programs. The insights from these sessions will help us as we scale our program and add new cohorts of learners in future terms.

The time away from campus at this conference was well spent.

Now that we’ve finalized our HLC application to offer the Alternative Pathway to Professional Licensure Eligibility (APPLE) – Elementary Education, the Nontraditional Education Team can turn their attention to course design in earnest. We’re not approved to offer APPLE yet, but we continue to move forward, believing that God will continue to bless and guide our efforts to his will.

Both Dr. Martin and Dr. Nichole LaGrow will work closely with MLC faculty to create Required Content, Professional Education, and Field Experience courses that meet Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) requirements. These courses will be very similar to our on-campus offerings. They will include the same standards and signature assessments required regardless of modality. However, the modality does change some elements of the coursework. For example, one feature of Brightspace that will be regularly featured in the classes is the ability to integrate digital content with comprehension checks as learners engage with the curated resources.

Dr. Nichole LaGrow will work closely with MLC faculty to create the General Education and Required Content courses that do not have Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board requirements. These courses will also closely parallel our on-campus offerings. These courses are not aligned with PELSB standards, but they will be mapped to the same general education and/or program outcomes and follow the same assessment cycle and related assessments as their on-campus offering. Additionally, a writing-intensive general education course remains a writing-intensive course with the same requirements of instruction in writing and the creation of 10-15 pages of polished, professional writing by the end of the course.

Our goal is to ensure that learners have a substantively similar academic experience and are held to the same academic rigor and expectations across all modalities offered by MLC.

MLC is excited to partner with St. Marcus to offer a CBTE cohort for Milwaukee-area faculty, staff, and supporters for our Lutheran Elementary Schools. The cohort will start classes in January 2025 and meet in person at the St. Marcus North campus once a week for one hour. Learners will complete two courses each term, and most of their coursework will be completed online.

This cohort is also piloting something new. The courses offered will support those who are not licensed teachers but want to better serve their home congregation or school and those who are licensed teachers already serving in our Lutheran Elementary Schools. Learners in this cohort will complete most of their courses together. In the final term of classes, learners who do not yet have a teaching license will be enrolled in THE 4001 Lutheran Confessional Writing, and the learners who do hold a teaching license will be enrolled in EDU 9540 Principles of Christian Education.

Tuition for these six classes is $5100, or $1700 per term.

All applications must be completed online using the MLC Application form. On the application’s enrollment page, select “CBE” for your program to ensure your application is shared with the Director of Nontraditional Education Program for consideration.

You will also need to provide copies of official transcripts from all institutions of higher education that you have attended, if you still need to send those in, as well as a personal statement and letter of reference. Tips for completing the personal statement and letter of reference are available on our webpage. You can save your progress and return to complete your application.

If you have questions about the CBTE Milwaukee Cohort or the application process, please contact Dr. Nichole LaGrow, Director of the Nontraditional Education Program.