Competency-Based Education (CBE) is not new. I’ve been immersed in this model since my first day in the military. It continues because it is a very effective method of knowledge transfer, especially for passing tacit knowledge from person to person.
There are tasks that need to be done, and we need competent technicians in whom we can trust. Full stop!
This trust is built when knowledgeable instructors and mentors take the time to carefully guide the student’s actions and thinking. It’s a consistent but gentle push, with scaffolding, to reach a clearly defined goal. For further reinforcement, the student closes the cycle and helps train the next learner.
This is a durable form of knowledge transfer. It’s as old as time, originating in the master–apprentice pattern of observation, guided practice, independent performance, and eventual mentorship.
It’s what keeps the production line humming.
This article supports DigiKey’s Structured Learning Pathways.
Author: Aaron Dahlen | MSEE | Senior Applications Engineer, DigiKey
Last updated: 24 Jul 2026
Author’s Note: This article presents the author’s instructional philosophy and framework guiding the DigiKey Structured Learning Pathways. It is aspirational, as many articles fail to deliver the entire CBE payload. Many of these articles were initially cast as stand-alone pieces. The content will be revised over time.
Refer to the Higher Learning Commission’s framework document if you are new to CBE.
Institutional Boundaries
DigiKey does not award academic credit or credentials. The learning path content is designed around CBE principles so that colleges, technical schools, instructors, and workforce-development programs may incorporate it into their own assessment structures.
Technical education is vital to DigiKey’s long-term interests and to the industries it serves. These educational materials are provided to help instructors develop competent technicians, technologists, and engineers.
Why use DigiKey’s training materials?
DigiKey offers publicly available, modular learning materials grounded in real industrial components, laboratory practice, and demonstrated competency.
The material is designed for flexible adoption. An instructor may:
- use a complete module
- substitute locally available or institutionally preferred components
- assign an individual laboratory exercise
- adapt a formative or summative assessment to strengthen an existing program
The DigiKey learning materials do not require an institution to replace its current courses, equipment, or instructional methods. Instead, instructors may select the portions that best address local program goals, available laboratory resources, student preparation, and industry needs.
The components support the instruction, but the learning is not tied to a single manufacturer or exact bill of materials. The underlying construction, measurement, calculation, explanation, documentation, and troubleshooting remain transferable across components and industrial environments.
Curriculum Tip: The CBE structure was deliberately chosen as it is generally easier for instructors to select the content that works for their programs. It also forces authors to be deliberate about what is included in the individual articles.
Institutional Responsibilities
Individual educational institutions remain responsible for:
Academic Authority
- assigning academic credit
- establishing admission and prerequisite requirements
- determining satisfactory academic progress
- administering summative assessments
- verifying student performance
- awarding degrees, certificates, or other credentials
Course and Laboratory Administration
- selecting qualified instructors
- establishing local electrical, laboratory, and machine-safety requirements
- providing accessible instruction and appropriate accommodations
- maintaining student records
- validating the material against local program and employer needs
- evaluating component substitutions and associated risks
Social Component: The role of the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and related social constructivist framework find anchor in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD describes the space between what a learner can accomplish independently and what the learner can accomplish with appropriate guidance.
What Instructional Principles Guide the Materials?
The learning materials are built around explicit competencies, sequenced instruction, formative practice, direct observation, summative verification, and opportunities for remediation and reassessment.
The instructional model includes the following aspirational characteristics:
- Cohort-based: Students learn as members of a laboratory community rather than as isolated individuals. This is social constructivism in action. However, summative assessments are conducted at the individual level.
- Instructor-supervised: A qualified instructor establishes safety boundaries, guides the learning process, protects the integrity of assessment, and verifies individual competency.
- Laboratory-intensive: Students construct, operate, measure, explain, and troubleshoot physical industrial systems. Errors during formative work are expected and function as self-induced learning opportunities.
- Supported by MKOs: Students receive formative guidance from instructors, experienced peers, and other experienced technicians of engineer. As learners gain competence, they may assume mentoring responsibilities themselves under the supervision of the instructor.
- Designed to support a community of practice: Students develop technical knowledge while participating in the language, procedures, judgment, teamwork, and professional habits of industrial work.
- Verified through direct observation: Skills involving wiring, measurement, safety practices, explanation, and troubleshooting are observed rather than inferred solely from written assessments.
- Completed through summative competency verification: The student must independently demonstrate the required competency to against the predefined mastery criteria.
Competencies are modular, but they are not necessarily independent. Later modules assume mastery of earlier competencies in foundational laboratory and electrical safety, measurement, electrical nodes, polarity, wiring, and circuit interpretation.
About This Author
Aaron Dahlen, LCDR USCG (Ret.), is a Senior Applications Engineer at DigiKey in Thief River Falls. His background in electronics and industrial automation was shaped by a 27-year military career as both technician and engineer, followed by over a decade of teaching.
Dahlen holds an MSEE from Minnesota State University, Mankato. He has taught in an ABET-accredited electrical engineering program, served as coordinator of an electronic engineering technology program, and instructed military technicians in component-level repair.
Today, he has returned to his home in northern Minnesota, completing a decades-long journey that began with a search for capacitors. Read his story here.