The first step in Instructional Design is to translate state content standards into academic learning tasks to be completed by each student in every subject, K-12. Each ‘task' involves one or more of the state content standards and is expressed as a Performance Indicator – shortened by users as ‘PIs.' Some districts prefer to call them "Power Standards," "Critical Indicators," or "Power Indicators." Each ‘PI' includes a measurable product to designate mastery and implies how the PI is to be taught and assessed. Most important is that each PI reflects not only the content but also the cognitive demand of the standard(s) included. Some PIs wrap several smaller standards together, while others split a larger, more complex standard into more ‘do-able' chunks. All of the PIs require students to construct meaning for themselves and are ‘nested' in a real-world context that represents a holistic application that parallels life-experience.

Unlike conventional objectives or a list of skills, Performance Indicators require students to use higher-level thinking to solve problems and to construct meaning for themselves. PIs are written at three levels of difficulty: Level I - knowledge-level or basic information; Level II - making inferences, generalizations, applications, and extensions of ideas, concepts, and skills used in class; and Level III - applying skills and concepts to solve new problems and construct new ‘products' apart from those used in class.

Because they represent the district's compliance with the state standards, the PIs are used to monitor each student's classroom performance. The Board of Education adopts the PIs as the official learning targets of the district, and they thus become the centerpiece of the district's instructional program. As such, they drive the purchase of textbooks, the criteria for letter grades, the professional development of staff members, and what is reported to parents and other stakeholders. Collectively, the level of student mastery of the Performance Indicators for each subject indicates the quality of the school - its curriculum, the teaching that occurs in its classrooms, and the infrastructure to sustain a viable instructional program.