Competency-Based Curriculum · free sample lesson
Turning a competency into something you can actually observe
How to write a lesson outcome that can be seen in a classroom, and record the evidence without adding an hour to your evening.
The competency is not the objective
Curriculum documents name broad competencies — communication, critical thinking, collaboration. No single lesson can assess those. Your job is to find the observable slice: what will a learner physically do this week that shows communication improving? Saying it out loud, listening and summarising another learner's point, presenting a two-minute argument — each is small enough to see and strong enough to matter.
The observability test
Write your outcome, then ask a colleague to watch for it. If they cannot say within one lesson whether it happened, the wording is too abstract. 'Understands collaboration' fails the test. 'Contributes one idea and asks one question during a group task, recorded by the group's notetaker' passes it — you could see it from the door.
Designing the evidence task
Every lesson needs one task that produces evidence, not five that produce activity. Choose a brief, purposeful task where the observable behaviour is unavoidable: a two-minute explanation to a partner, a short written justification, a group decision with reasons. Keep the task small enough to finish inside the lesson — evidence you can collect and look at beats evidence you spend the weekend marking.
The three-column record
Date, competency, one line of evidence. That is the whole system. Photograph the page weekly and you have a term's record that survives report-writing season. Tracking that costs more than it gives back stops working by week six; the point of the record is to inform tomorrow's lesson, not to satisfy an audit.
Feedback that moves the learner
Record the evidence, then say one thing to the learner: what they did, and what the next small step is. 'You explained your reason clearly — next time, ask the group whether they agree before you move on.' Two sentences, spoken during the lesson, beats a comment written a fortnight later. Keep the learner in the loop and the records take care of themselves.
Key takeaways
- Translate the broad competency into an observable slice for this week.
- If a colleague could not see it in one lesson, rewrite the outcome.
- One evidence-producing task per lesson — no more.
- Three columns: date, competency, one line of evidence.
Knowledge check
Two questions to test the reading
1. Which outcome passes the observability test?
2. What is the purpose of the three-column evidence record?
Discussion task
Take a competency from your curriculum framework and write one observable lesson outcome for it. Then describe the evidence-producing task you would use and the one line you would record.
Enrolled teachers post their response and receive peer and mentor feedback on this task.
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