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B Optimal Future-Ready Competency Framework

Empower Growth.
Expand Impact.
Prepare for What’s Next.

Our Future-Ready Competency Framework™ builds on the momentum of widely adopted standards for career and future readiness to meet the evolving needs of college learners, institutions, and communities.

Grounded in research and designed for real-life application, our framework makes future-ready competencies practical, visible, and transferable — across work, life, and civic spaces.

 

It connects daily habits to broader impact, so students don’t just land jobs — they grow into adaptable, trusted contributors ready for what’s next.

The Future-Ready Competency Framework™

What is the Future-Ready Competency Framework™?

The Future-Ready Competency Framework™ aligns with and expand upon nationally recognized standards for readiness to bridge academic, co-curricular, and community-based learning, translating broad expectations into language students can understand, practice, and apply.

 

The framework is rooted in everyday actions and invites students to see growth as something they actively shape—something they can describe, develop, and transfer across contexts.​ 

 

At its core, the Future-Ready Framework™ treats development as a process, not a checklist—guiding students through three dynamic, progressive non-linear stages:

Self-Awareness & Practice

Learners begin by building awareness of their values, behaviors, and habits.

They explore competencies through reflection and low-risk practice.

 

Relational Awareness & Contribution

Learners apply skills with others, adapt to new contexts, and begin to recognize how their actions influence shared goals and group outcomes.

 Systems Thinking & Impact

Learners demonstrate broader awareness, anticipate consequences, and act with purpose to improve systems, structures, or communities.

The model includes eight core competencies and three integrative competencies, each defined through key habits (Core Actions) and articulated through developmentally aligned, observable behaviors.

What is Future Readiness?

Future readiness represents the ability to navigate complexity, contribute meaningfully, and apply learning across diverse contexts—with clarity, adaptability, and purpose.

It’s not a checklist of skills—it’s a developmental process.

What Are Competencies?

Core Competencies are the integrated foundational skills, knowledge, and mindsets that are essential building blocks for success. 

Integrative Competencies represent complex, real-world expressions of multiple core competencies interacting meaningfully. The are essential for future-readiness because they reflect the kinds of challenges today’s learners must be prepared to navigate—both professionally and personally. They help students make sense of complexity, sustain momentum over time, and show up with purpose and awareness in diverse, evolving contexts.

​​​​The result is  a practical roadmap for building future readiness.

 🔹Equity-Driven & Student-Centered: Builds agency, inclusion, ownership of learning, and leadership foundations.

  🔹Career-Connected & Life-Ready: Prepares students to contribute in work, community, and civic life.

  🔹Behavior-Based & Transparent: Makes competencies teachable, observable, and transferable.

  🔹Developmental & Impact-Oriented: Supports growth, from personal habits to systemic contribution.

  🔹Flexible, Integrative & Practice-Informed: Designed for real classrooms, across disciplines and modalities.

Key Features of the Framework

By making learning visible, valuable, and transferable, the Future-Ready Framework™ equips students to move from the classroom to real-world impact—with the adaptability, agency, and purpose needed to thrive. Here's how:

​​🔆 Holistic, not just career-focused. The Future-Ready Competencies Framework extends beyond basic “career readiness" to see individuals more fully — as people growing skills they’ll use in personal, professional, civic, and community life.  ​ 🌿 Prepares for lifelong learning & leadership. It integrates essentials like self-leadership, lifelong learning, and agility — the mindsets needed to keep growing, adapting, and contributing well beyond any single job or career, into all the ways learners build healthy lives, communities, and systems. ​💫 From static lists to dynamic growth. While most frameworks stop at “Here’s a list of competencies — check them off,” this roadmap maps the entire arc of growth in plain language: from mindsets, to daily actions, to visible signals, to systemic impact. ​➿ From individual to relational + systemic. It bridges the gap between “my skills” and how those skills help build fair, resilient, and adaptive teams and communities. This emphasis on skills that multiply — not just skills that check boxes — reflects what employers, students, and communities actually need. ​🌐 From global awareness to perspective-taking and practice. In the Future-Ready Competency Framework, Global Perspectives & Practices isn't a stand-alone skill. It's a clear, practical lens woven through every competency that extends beyond personal awareness to cultivate supporting mindsets, habits, and real-world actions that impact people and systems. Learners grow cultural humility, curiosity, and openness to diverse ways of seeing the world, and they practice adapting ideas, communication, and actions in local and global contexts to strengthen fairness, sustainability, and shared systems. ​🔦 From hidden to visible. Too often, real growth is invisible. This framework makes it clear what to look for, practice, and track so learners can articulate their growth, show evidence, and transfer their skills confidently. It empowers students — especially those historically left out by traditional gatekeeping — to see and speak their value. ​🛠 Practical, Open Access, and Scalable. The open-access version shares the what and why freely with students and educators. For those ready to go deeper, the Tree Map subscription adds robust tools for real-time mapping, storytelling, and implementation across advising, classrooms, and community practice. ​🚀 Groundbreaking for students and institutions alike. It gives students agency over their development and gives institutions a clear developmental language that’s simple to embed in advising, courses, portfolios, or systems design — ensuring that future-readiness is more than a slogan, but a visible, shared practice.

Bringing Future Readiness to Life

A Practical Tool for Educators

Building Future-Readiness in College Learners

A Practical Tool for Growing Future-Ready Skills with Meaningful Impact — From Self to Systems

​​Building Future-Readiness in College Learners: A Practical Tool for Growing Future-Ready Skills with Meaningful Impact — From Self to Systems is a free, educator-developed tool is designed to help faculty and higher ed professionals bring future-ready skill development into their classrooms, programs, and co-curricular spaces.

 

Drawn directly from the Future-Ready Competency Framework™ this tool is grounded in national frameworks for career and future readiness as well as decades of research and practice in teaching, leadership, learning design, and systems thinking. It bridges the gap between abstract competencies and meaningful student growth, reflecting how students live, grow, and integrate skills across complex, evolving contexts.

 

Inside, you'll find:

  • 8 core competencies with clear daily habits (“core actions”) and behavior-based developmental levels.

  • 3 integrative competencies—Civic Responsibility, Global Perspective, and Intentional Resilience—built from cross-competency behaviors and systems thinking.

  • Student-centered language designed to support STARR storytelling and reflective practice.

  • Flexible application across disciplines, learning levels, and institutional priorities.

Whether you're guiding a course, designing curriculum, leading a learning initiative, or mentoring students, this open-access tool helps make learning visible, valuable, and transferable—across contexts and over time.

Designed by educators, for educators—this free resource turns abstract competencies into meaningful learning habits your students can see, name, and grow.

 

Whether you're designing a course, mentoring students, or supporting career-connected learning, this tool helps bridge coursework with the real world.

🔹Perfect for authentic assessment, reflection, and STARR storytelling
🔹 Grounded in research, designed for practice
🔹 Download and use freely in your own teaching and curriculum design

The Core Competencies

The Framework includes eight core competences, brought to life through six clear, actionable elements that make growth visible and transferable:​​

  • the mindsets you cultivate

  • the daily habits you practice

  • the real contexts where you apply and adapt them

  • the visible signs you’re using them

  • the impact you create for others

  • and how your growth progresses from personal insight to systems change.

Explore each of the competencies below to learn more!

Learn More

This work is informed by research and expands upon national frameworks for career and future readiness—including the NACE Career Readiness Competencies, the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics, and the P21 Framework for 21st Century Skills.
It draws from these resources to identify shared priorities, clarify expectations, and illuminate gaps in application. The framework presented here represents an original, practice-based synthesis designed to support real-world student growth across academic, professional, and civic contexts.

Let's Collaborate!

Our teaching and learning experts are here to help you find the solution that's right for you.

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