Phase 1: Instructional Architecture & Design Standard

STATUS: Draft For Review & Approval — No competencies have been redesigned under this framework yet.

1. Purpose of This Document

This document defines the instructional architecture — the “constitution” — that will govern every competency, lesson, assessment, and learning pathway developed for The Learning Library’s Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) curriculum. It does not redesign any existing content. Its sole purpose is to establish and justify a consistent instructional model so that, once approved, every one of the five Pre-ETS service areas — Job Exploration Counseling, Counseling on Postsecondary Education Opportunities, Instruction in Self-Advocacy, Workplace Readiness Training, and Work-Based Learning Experiences — can be redesigned the same way.

The framework is built to sit on top of the existing state approved TransitionTN Pre-ETS Sequencing Guide rather than replace it. The Guide’s Competency Category → Skill Topic → Skill-Building Activity structure, its Minimal / Developing / Satisfactory progress scale, its High / Medium / Low prioritization, and its person-driven, needs-based (not grade-based) philosophy are treated as fixed inputs. This framework adds the missing middle layer: a defined progression of learning levels, with a matched instructional strategy, assessment method, and evidence type at each level, so that Skill-Building Activities can be sequenced consistently inside Moodle.

2. Educational Theories Underpinning the Framework

Six complementary theories inform the design. Each contributes a specific, load-bearing element rather than a general flavor:

Theory	What it contributes to this framework
Bloom's Taxonomy (cognitive domain)	Provides the verb ladder — Remember/Understand → Apply → Analyze/Evaluate/Create — used to write measurable objectives at each level and to keep assessment complexity aligned to instructional complexity.
Competency-Based Education (CBE)	Establishes that advancement is triggered by demonstrated mastery against explicit criteria, not by time-on-task or grade level — directly matching the Guide's existing needs-based philosophy.
Constructivism (Piaget; Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development)	Justifies starting every competency by connecting to the student's existing experience (Discover), and supports scaffolded co-construction of skill (Build) before independent use.
Gradual Release of Responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) — "I Do, We Do, You Do"	This is already named explicitly in the current Sequencing Guide. The framework formalizes it: Discover/Build = I Do, Practice = We Do, Apply = You Do — giving providers a research-based label for a practice they already use.
Social Learning Theory (Bandura)	Supports the use of modeling, mentor demonstration, peer practice, and self-efficacy-building feedback, particularly at the Build and Practice levels.
Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller)	Justifies why support must be deliberately sequenced and gradually withdrawn — introducing skills, context, and independence simultaneously overloads working memory, especially for students with disabilities.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)	Requires multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression at every level — essential given the population Pre-ETS serves. Applied throughout, not as a separate level.
Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan)	Grounds the Extend level and the framework's person-driven emphasis: autonomy, competence, and relatedness are what make skill use durable and self-directed rather than compliance-driven — critical for self-advocacy outcomes.

Note on the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition (novice → advanced beginner → competent → proficient → expert): it was considered as an alternative backbone but rejected as the primary structure. Dreyfus describes tacit, intuitive expertise development appropriate to adults refining a professional craft over years; Pre-ETS serves middle- and high-school students acquiring foundational, explicitly-taught skills over short-term service windows. Its language (“expert”) also does not map cleanly to a K-12 transition context. Its core insight — that judgment and speed increase with experience — is preserved inside the Practice and Extend levels instead.

3. Recommended Learning Progression

Framework name:

Discover → Build → Practice → Apply → Extend

Why not "Explore"?

The brief offered “Discover → Explore → Practice → Apply → Extend” as a starting point. “Explore” is deliberately not used here because it is already a load-bearing term inside the Pre-ETS content itself — “Career Exploration” is a named Competency Category, and “Job Exploration Counseling” is one of the five statutory service areas. Reusing “Explore” as a generic framework-level label would create a naming collision every time a provider discusses, for example, the Explore level of the Career Exploration category — it would be unclear whether “explore” refers to the learning level or the content category. “Build” was chosen instead: it names what actually happens at that stage (moving from concept to guided procedure) and does not collide with any existing Pre-ETS vocabulary.

Why five levels, and why this order

Five levels is the minimum needed to represent a full Bloom’s arc (Remember/Understand → Apply → Analyze/Evaluate/Create) while also giving Practice its own distinct stage — separating “can do it with help” from “can do it alone” is the single most useful distinction for providers deciding when to reduce support.
The order mirrors Gradual Release of Responsibility exactly, so it will feel familiar to providers already using “I Do, We Do, You Do” — this framework does not ask them to learn a new mental model, only to add two labeled stages (Discover before “I Do,” and Extend after “You Do”) that the Guide currently leaves implicit.
Extend is deliberately separated from Apply. The current Guide already names “generalization” — demonstrating a skill across settings — as distinct from first demonstrating it once. Treating these as the same level would understate how much instructional design (novel contexts, cross-setting probes) generalization actually requires.

Progression is non-linear across skill topics

Levels describe a single Skill Topic’s trajectory, not the student as a whole. A student may be at Apply in one Skill Topic and Discover in another simultaneously — this matches the existing Guide’s per-Skill-Topic Minimal/Developing/Satisfactory rating and preserves person-driven, needs-based planning. Two additional non-linear cases are built into the model by design:

Variable entry point: a student may start at any level based on the initial rating gathered through the existing Guide (e.g., a student already rated “Developing” enters at Build or Practice, not Discover).
Recycling for maintenance: per the Guide’s existing emphasis on skill maintenance, a student who has reached Apply or Extend but shows regression should be cycled back to Practice — not restarted at Discover — since the concept is retained even if fluency has lapsed.

4. Learning Level Summary

Quick-reference overview of the five levels. Full detail on instructional methods, assessment, and evidence follows in Section 5.

Level	Purpose	Advances to Next Level When...
1 · DISCOVER Foundational Awareness	Build a shared vocabulary and conceptual foundation; connect new content to the student's existing experience.	Advances to Build when the student can recognize, recall, or describe the core concept with support (Bloom: Remember / Understand).
2 - BUILD Guided Skill Development	Convert conceptual understanding into procedural know-how through heavily supported modeling and co-practice.	Advances to Practice when the student can complete the task accurately with prompts and can explain the steps (Bloom: Understand / early Apply).
3 - PRACTICE Supported Independent Practice	Build fluency and confidence through repetition with steadily fading support.	Advances to Apply when the student performs the task with minimal support across at least two practice attempts or contexts (Bloom: Apply).
4 - APPLY Independent Authentic Application	Demonstrate the skill independently in an authentic or realistic context that mirrors real-world demands.	Advances to Extend when the student performs the skill independently and accurately without support, and is ready to test it in new settings (Bloom: Apply / Analyze).
5 - EXTEND Generalization & Transfer	Transfer and sustain the skill across novel settings, people, and time, and apply it flexibly to self-directed goals.	Considered fully mastered and generalized; the student may re-enter this progression at Discover for a related, more advanced competency

5. Learning Level Detail — Characteristics, Methods, Assessment & Evidence

Landscape orientation is used here to keep each level’s full detail on a single readable row.

5a. Learner Characteristics & Instructional Strategies

Level	Learner Characteristics	Instructional Strategies & Activities	Recommended Moodle Delivery
1 - DISCOVERY	Little or no prior exposure to the topic. Corresponds to a 'Minimal' rating on the existing Sequencing Guide scale. Learner is receptive, not yet producing the skill.	Direct instruction with concrete, real-world anchors. Multimedia introductions (short video, narrated slideshow). Vocabulary-building and graphic organizers.	Lesson/Page + embedded video; H5P interactive video; ungraded knowledge-check quiz.
2 - BUILD	Understands the concept but cannot yet perform it independently. Corresponds to early 'Developing' ratings. Needs explicit prompts and step-by-step support.	Worked examples and think-alouds. Co-completion of the task ('We Do'). Structured templates, checklists, and sentence starters.	H5P branching scenario with heavy feedback; guided worksheet (Assignment); Workshop peer-model exemplars.
3 - PRACTICE	Can perform the skill but inconsistently or slowly. Corresponds to later 'Developing' ratings. Benefits from self-monitoring tools.	Scenario-based and simulated practice. Peer practice / practice with feedback partners. Self-monitoring checklists and reflection logs.	H5P drag-and-drop / timed quiz with attempts allowed; self-check-off Checklist activity
4 - APPLY	Performs the skill without prompting in a familiar setting. Corresponds to a 'Satisfactory' rating and a 'Yes' proficiency mark. Ready for real-world or simulated application.	Work-based learning experiences (job shadowing, informational interviews, internships). Community-based instruction and real or simulated projects. Independent problem-solving tasks and case studies.	Assignment with rubric upload (portfolio artifact); external work-based-learning log; mentor-scored rubric via Workshop.
5 - EXTEND	Skill is durable and generalizes beyond the original instructional context. Represents mastery beyond the existing scale's ceiling. Student can self-advocate for use of the skill and may support peers.	Novel / unstructured scenarios and cross-setting practice. Student-led enterprises, service-learning, career-related competitions. Peer mentoring / teaching-back.	Portfolio/ePortfolio activity synthesizing artifacts; Badge issued on completion; reflective Forum/Journal.

5b. Assessment Methods & Evidence of Competency

Level	Recommended Assessment Methods	Evidence that Demonstrates Competency
1 - DISCOVER	Low-stakes formative checks (polls, exit tickets). Recognition-level quizzes (matching, multiple choice). Verbal or written self-report checklist.	Defines or identifies key terms and concepts. Restates the purpose of the skill in own words.
2 - BUILD	Rubric-scored guided performance tasks. Provider observation checklist (prompts permitted and logged). Guided-practice quizzes with immediate feedback.	Completes the task correctly with prompting. Explains each step of the process when asked.
3 - PRACTICE	Performance rubric scored across repeated trials. Self-assessment paired with provider verification. Progress-monitoring data (accuracy / independence trend).	Performs the skill with minimal support across 2+ attempts. Demonstrates increasing consistency and speed.
4 - APPLY	Authentic / performance-based assessment. Portfolio evidence review. Employer, mentor, or job-coach feedback using a shared rubric.	Independently and accurately performs the skill in a real or authentic setting. Portfolio artifact demonstrates the outcome (work product, reflection, evaluation).
5 - EXTEND	Generalization probes across 2+ novel settings or people. Self-directed goal tracking and portfolio synthesis. Capstone reflection or presentation.	Applies the skill flexibly and independently across multiple, novel contexts. Sustains the skill over time without re-teaching. Can describe or teach the skill to someone else.

6. Standard Redesign Template

This is the template every Skill Topic will be run through in later phases. It operationalizes Sections 4–5 into a fillable structure. One illustrative row is shown below, populated with plausible placeholder content only — it is not a completed redesign of any existing Skill Topic.

Template Field	Guidance for Completing It
Pre-ETS Service Area	One of the five statutory services (e.g., Job Exploration Counseling)
Competency Category	As currently defined in the Sequencing Guide (e.g., Career Awareness)
Skill Topic	As currently defined in the Sequencing Guide
Entry Level	Discover / Build / Practice / Apply / Extend — where most students in this topic are expected to start
Learning Objective (per level)	One Bloom's-verb objective written for each level the topic will use
Instructional Activity (per level)	The specific activity and Moodle delivery method from Section 5a
Assessment Method (per level)	The specific method from Section 5b, with rubric/criteria reference
Evidence Artifact (per level)	What is captured as proof — quiz result, rubric score, portfolio item, observation log
Progression Criteria	The explicit, measurable threshold for advancing to the next level
UDL / Accommodation Notes	Alternate formats, supports, or accommodations to be built in, not bolted on
Priority	High / Medium / Low — carried over unchanged from the existing Sequencing Guide
Crosswalk to Existing Rating	Mapping to Minimal / Developing / Satisfactory and Yes/No proficiency, so legacy data is not lost

7. Crosswalk to the Existing Sequencing Guide

The framework is designed to layer onto, not replace, the fields providers already use:

Template Field	Guidance for Completing It
Pre-ETS Service Area	One of the five statutory services (e.g., Job Exploration Counseling)
Competency Category	As currently defined in the Sequencing Guide (e.g., Career Awareness)
Skill Topic	As currently defined in the Sequencing Guide
Entry Level	Discover / Build / Practice / Apply / Extend — where most students in this topic are expected to start
Learning Objective (per level)	One Bloom's-verb objective written for each level the topic will use
Instructional Activity (per level)	The specific activity and Moodle delivery method from Section 5a
Assessment Method (per level)	The specific method from Section 5b, with rubric/criteria reference
Evidence Artifact (per level)	What is captured as proof — quiz result, rubric score, portfolio item, observation log
Progression Criteria	The explicit, measurable threshold for advancing to the next level
UDL / Accommodation Notes	Alternate formats, supports, or accommodations to be built in, not bolted on
Priority	High / Medium / Low — carried over unchanged from the existing Sequencing Guide
Crosswalk to Existing Rating	Mapping to Minimal / Developing / Satisfactory and Yes/No proficiency, so legacy data is not lost

8. Design Decisions, Alternatives, and Trade-offs

Alternatives considered

Bloom’s Taxonomy alone, unmodified (6 levels: Remember/Understand/Apply/Analyze/Evaluate/Create): rejected as the sole backbone. It describes cognitive complexity but says nothing about the amount of support a provider should give — which is the day-to-day decision providers actually make. It is used instead as the verb ladder inside each of the five levels.
Understanding by Design / backward design: valuable and compatible, but it is a course-design process, not a learner progression. Its principle — start from evidence of mastery, then design backward — is embedded in how the template (Section 6) is ordered, but it was not adopted as the top-level framework.
A 3-level model (Introduce / Practice / Master): simpler to administer, but collapses the “can do with help” vs. “can do independently” distinction that providers need to decide when to fade support, and collapses first-demonstration vs. generalized-transfer, which the existing Guide already treats as separate concerns.
Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition: see Section 2 — rejected as primary structure due to age/context mismatch, retained conceptually inside Practice/Extend.

Known trade-offs of the recommended model

Five levels means more design labor per Skill Topic than a 3-level model — each of the ~100+ existing Skill Topics will need objectives, strategies, assessments, and evidence written at up to five levels. Mitigation: the Section 6 template and the reusable strategy/assessment banks in Section 5 are built so most of this is selection from a menu, not de novo writing, for every topic.
Non-linear, per-topic progression is pedagogically correct but harder to represent in a single Moodle completion bar than a strictly linear course. Mitigation: see Moodle implementation notes below — recommend competency/topic-level completion tracking rather than one whole-course progress bar.
Mapping five levels onto a three-point existing scale (Minimal/Developing/Satisfactory) is a compression, not a perfect crosswalk — Discover and early Build both fall under “Minimal.” This is an intentional, disclosed trade-off (Section 7) so historical data keeps meaning without forcing an immediate rewrite of the existing Guide’s rating scale.

9. Moodle Implementation Notes

High-level notes only — detailed course build is out of scope for Phase 1.

Represent each Skill Topic as its own Moodle activity/topic section, not each of the five levels as separate courses — keeps the existing Competency Category → Skill Topic structure intact.
Use Activity Completion + Restrict Access to enforce the progression criteria in Section 4 (e.g., Practice activity unlocks only after the Build activity’s completion criteria are met).
Use the Competency Framework / Learning Plans functionality (or a Badges-based equivalent if Competencies is not enabled) to track level attainment per Skill Topic per student, mirroring the existing per-topic Yes/No proficiency field.
Reserve H5P content types for Build/Practice (branching scenarios, drag-and-drop, interactive video) where immediate feedback matters most; reserve Assignment + rubric for Apply/Extend where authentic, provider-scored evidence is required.
Providers working outside Moodle (community-based instruction, work-based learning) should log Apply/Extend evidence through a simple Assignment upload or logged Checklist so paper-based evidence still feeds the same record.

10. Next Steps

Recommended sequence following approval of this framework:

Validate this framework with a small provider review panel, ideally including someone unfamiliar with instructional design jargon, to confirm the level names and progression logic are usable in practice.
Pilot the Section 6 template on a single, representative Skill Topic from one service area (recommend a short, well-bounded topic, such as the ‘Working knowledge of reasons why having a job and career is important’ topic under Career Awareness) to stress-test the template before full rollout.
Once validated, apply the template systematically across all five Pre-ETS service areas in subsequent phases — this is the redesign work this document explicitly defers.
Build the Moodle competency/badge structure in parallel with the first pilot topic so structural issues surface early rather than after full content build-out.