Let's Put the "E" in CBTE [Competency-Based Teacher Education].

Overview & Synopsis

Since the controversial concept of Competency Based Teacher Education (CBTE) has been or will shortly be mandated by many state legislatures, it is now important to stress the teacher education component of the concept as opposed to teacher training. While training teaches students to perform previously stated, uniform, or similar tasks, education encourages individual cognitive differences. Four recommendations for insuring the realization of education in CBTE are the encouragement of the individual differences of student teachers, the retention of open-ended competency requirements, the creation of the connection between theory and practice, and the development of evaluation tasks which require transfer of learning and which assess teacher and student originated objectives. (JM)