What can we learn from aliens about designing proficiency-based instruction? Imagine that you are an alien and have just landed on Earth. You come upon a bicycle that is leaning up against a tree. You are curious so you touch it. You intuitively put your hands on the handlebars and realize that it moves smoothly because of the round nature of the wheels. Your alien experience may look different but something would happen, right?

Conventional designs

In most instructional designs that we have been trained to use over the last 20 years or more, there is a sort of linear progression where a learner interacts with one part of the process at a time and doesn’t move on until that step has been achieved. We have been using Bloom’s Taxonomy to scaffold our designs so that learners can access each level of learning. But is that really how we learn? When we design instruction with this “alien” perspective instead, learners can come in where they are and move at their own pace through the process. This is the ideal of a proficiency or competency-based system. 

Different levels of proficiency

Let’s keep imagining this scenario and think of two other learners interacting with this bicycle. Imagine a human who has seen someone riding a bike but has never tried to ride one and a third learner who has been riding without training wheels all summer. They would all interact with this bicycle in different ways and at different levels of proficiency and they would all need different types of instruction to become more proficient. How can we use these ideas to design instruction that can be more personalized? Could issues of motivation, apathy, and lack of self-direction be addressed by changing the way we design instruction?

Becoming proficient

My first experience designing instruction using this idea of interacting with an entire process from the start rather than breaking each step down was eye-opening. The final product of the semester in my entrepreneurship class was a mini Shark Tank pitch to the local business association. The first thing I asked students to do was write a pitch. There had been no specific instruction on how to start a pitch (kind of like the alien had never seen the bike). I simply asked them to think about communicating their business ideas. I provided them with a rubric that described a progression of proficiency for communicating a persuasive business pitch (See the example below). They were able to look at their written pitches and the rubric and immediately identify the pieces that were missing. Because of this obvious disconnect, they were practically asking me to provide instruction and knew exactly what they needed. It was as if the alien pushing the bike was suddenly passed on the street by someone who had been riding a bike for years. The alien would immediately be able to identify a possible next step if they saw someone riding the bike.

Learning scales and rubrics

There are some important considerations when designing instruction in this way. Identifying the product that could demonstrate proficiency and distinguishing that from just the product is one important distinction. This requires identifying the thinking that is expected in the product, not the qualities of the product itself. For example, in my “pitch” example, the rubric doesn’t outline the elements of the pitch but rather the qualities of persuasion. They could immediately tell when their pitches weren’t convincing. As a result, they either asked for instruction or came up with their own ways of being more convincing. This is a difficult distinction though. An obvious example is a rubric for an essay that outlines neatness or a number of citations. These are not the qualities of proficiency. These are qualities of the product itself. The qualities of proficiency aren’t a specific number of citations but rather the purpose behind this number. What changes about the essay of there are 5 rather than 2 citations? Are we trying to get them to be more convincing? Are we trying to get them to elaborate on ideas? Making this distinction is important because it will result in two different learner responses. If learners are provided with a rubric that tells them how many citations to put in their essay, they will focus on getting that many citations in their paper for the sake of getting a good grade on the paper. On the other hand, if we are clear about what it is we want learners to be proficient at doing and outline how well we want them to be doing it, they will respond by focusing on the learning because that is the focus of the learning scale. 

While these distinctions and nuances can be tough to get a handle on, they come quite naturally when you start to design instruction using the alien method. If you know what you want learners to do and can describe how well you want them to do it, you can ask them to do it very early on in the learning process and have them assess their current state of learning. This allows you to meet them where they are and provide them with the exact instruction they need. All of a sudden, it’s not about work completion or getting things done, it’s about learning. An easy way to start is to reorganize a current lesson.

e.g

Beginning-I can communicate my business idea in a general way.

Developing-I can communicate the elements of a business idea in a pitch that provides information about my idea.

Proficient-I can communicate the elements of a business idea in a pitch that is convincing and persuasive.

Excelling-I can communicate the elements of a business plan; my pitch and differentiator are particularly innovative, unique or creative.