This week's Monday Morsel from Kerensa explores learning intentions and success competencies, and it's prompted me to reconsider how I approach instructional design in Classical Civilisation. More specifically, it's made me reflect on a recent sequence of lessons on Tiberius Gracchus and how clarity of purpose transforms student engagement with complex historical material.

This is my favourite part of the course. On the face of it, it might seem a bit stuffy - who gets excited about land reform? But in reality, it's about the moment a man pushed the Republic's checks and balances to their absolute limits, fundamentally shifting how politics could function. It's the transition from how the Republic was supposed to work to something far more dangerous and unpredictable.

The Task Trap

The distinction between task-driven and learning-driven planning is crucial, yet easy to blur in practice (Wiliam, 2011). For years, I structured lessons around activities - "analyse the Lex Agraria", "explore Tiberius Gracchus' tribuneship", "read Plutarch's account of the deposition of Octavius". The board would display these instructions, students would work through them, and I'd assume learning was happening simply because tasks were being completed.

But activity completion doesn't guarantee learning. Students might successfully identify key reforms in the Lex Agraria without understanding why those reforms mattered or how they represented a seismic shift in Roman political culture. They might read Plutarch without grasping the significance of what they were reading. As Rosenshine (2012) argues, expert teachers make the steps to success explicit and visible. Looking back, I'd been skipping this crucial step.

The Shift: Defining Success

The morsel's insight is that learning intentions and success competencies must work in synergy. The learning intention provides the destination; the success competencies map the route. Without both, students are navigating without guidance.

My recent Tiberius Gracchus sequence exemplifies this shift. Instead of structuring lessons around "understand Tiberius Gracchus' reforms" - which is vague and unmeasurable - the aim is now to design with precision:

Learning intention: Understand how Tiberius Gracchus' tribuneship shifted the Overton window of acceptable political behaviour

Success competencies:

1. I can explain the political and social context that enabled Gracchus' reforms (the agrarian crisis, wealth inequality, military recruitment problems)
2. I can analyse the methods Gracchus used that violated traditional mos maiorum (circumventing the Senate, deposing Octavius, seeking re-election)
3. I can evaluate how his actions expanded what became politically acceptable (the precedent for violence, direct appeals to the people)
4. I can trace how this shift influenced subsequent political actors in the Late Republic (the Gracchi as exemplars for later populares)

This aligns with cognitive load theory (Sweller et al., 2011). Novice learners need clear schemas to organise complex information. The Late Republic is cognitively demanding - multiple overlapping conflicts, shifting alliances, unfamiliar constitutional structures. When students can see the specific elements of understanding they're building, they can monitor their own progress and identify gaps in their knowledge.

The Communication Challenge

This is where the morsel's insight becomes critical: simply displaying learning intentions achieves little (Clarke, 2014). I've seen this in practice, where students dutifully scribble down the learning intention at the start of the lesson, then proceed to engage with tasks without connecting them back to that overarching goal.

Novice learners require repeated, explicit connections between tasks and learning goals. The mind of a novice craves clarity - and overcommunication is not possible.

So during the Gracchus sequence, I'm now deliberately pausing during source analysis to ask: "Which competency are we building right now?" When we examine Plutarch's account of the deposition of Octavius, I stop and make the connection explicit: "This is helping us with competency two - analysing how Gracchus violated mos maiorum. What specifically about deposing a tribune was unprecedented?"

When we trace the influence on later figures like Saturninus or Clodius, I connect back: "Remember our fourth competency - we're tracking how this shift influenced later political actors. What patterns do you see?"

This constant referencing transforms how students engage with material. They're consciously building understanding, piece by piece.

Why This Matters for Classical Civilisation

The cognitive architecture of novices demands this clarity (Kirschner et al., 2006). Classical Civilisation asks students to navigate unfamiliar political systems, understand cultural norms vastly different from their own, and analyse historical causation across decades. Without explicit scaffolding, the cognitive load overwhelms.

But when students understand not just what they're doing but why and how it builds towards mastery, confusion transforms into confidence. They can self-assess: "I'm confident with competency one - I understand the context - but I need to work more on competency three about evaluating the expansion of acceptable behaviour."

They become co-pilots in their own learning, rather than passengers hoping the teacher will get them to the right destination.

From Theory to Practice

The practical implications for lesson planning are significant. I'm no longer asking "What activities will fill this lesson?" but rather "What specific competencies do students need to build understanding of this concept, and what tasks will help them build those competencies?"

For Tiberius Gracchus, this meant:

• Starting with the agrarian crisis and military context (competency one) before examining his methods
• Using Plutarch's account not as a comprehension exercise, but as evidence for violation of mos maiorum (competency two)
• Explicitly comparing his actions to earlier tribunes to establish what was unprecedented (competency two)
• Creating a timeline activity that traces from Ti. Gracchus → Gaius Gracchus → Saturninus → Clodius to make the pattern of escalation visible (competency four)

Each task has a clear purpose, explicitly linked back to the competencies, repeatedly communicated throughout.

The Takeaway

The key takeaway is this: successful navigation requires expert planning and guidance. As teachers, we are the experts. Our students are novices navigating unfamiliar territory. It's our responsibility to specify the learning with clarity, to break down complex understanding into achievable steps, and to communicate those steps relentlessly.

When we do this well, confusion transforms into confidence, and that's where students thrive.