The Instructor will present the experience of designing tasks for use on an elementary course in geology to a cohort of students enrolled on an 2 year Program of studies at a Junior College in Japan. On successful completion of the program, students were entitled to apply to Higher Education Institutions in the USA for an additional two years of study. One possible obstacle to the learners' success was that the textbook was prescribed by an organization representing many of the institutions where the students were likely to study, From the outset, the high intrinsic cognitive load of the curriculum was recognized by both the course facilitator (the presenter) and the students ( n = 23 ) The importance of the role of learner agency in learner development was enacted in a process in which elements of the syllabus content and design of the assessment tasks were negotiated using software similar to Articulate 360 and popular polling software ( Polljunkie). The responses were used to de-emphasize activities which required prior knowledge of "difficult and/ or confusing" scientific concepts studied previously, and emphasize topics such as Natural Disasters Mountain Building, Running water which appealed to the perceived ability and interests of the cohort. 5 procedures are explored and examined from the critical viewpoint of task design in CALL.