Page 102 - Making Instruction Work

chap 8 3/4/97 3:43 PM Page 88

88 making instruction work

side by side on your hierarchy. (A neat trick is to use
those little pads of paper that are gummed on one end.
Write each skill on one of the “stickies” and then move
them around until you are satisfied.) If one must be
learned before the other, the subordinate skill (the one
that must be learned first) should be drawn below the
other and connected to the one above it by an arrow.

4. Answer the same question for each pair of skills.

5. Draft a hierarchy; i.e., draw lines between the skills
showing how they relate to one another.

6. Test your hierarchy.

a. Make sure that every box on your hierarchy describes
a skill rather than content. How? If you can put the
word can in front of each item, it is probably describ-
ing a skill. For example, “Disassemble” makes sense
when you add can—“Can disassemble.” “Algebra,”
however, makes no sense at all when written, “Can
algebra.” Delete algebra and replace it with the skills
that are relevant to the performance of the task in
question. The subject matter won’t get lost; it will go
into your lessons. But subject matter has no place on
the skill hierarchy.

b. Starting at the top of the hierarchy, put a finger on
each box that has one or more arrows leading into it
and ask, “Is it true that students cannot practice this
skill (the one you are pointing to) before they learn
the skills shown as subordinate to this skill?” If the
answer is “yes,” go on to the next box and repeat the
process. If the answer is “no,” make the necessary cor-
rection.