Page 110 - Making Instruction Work

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96 making instruction work

them. To treat them all alike would be to bore some and
frustrate others, and that’s not your goal.

4. When you have said all you can say, keep the document
handy. Add to it as items come to mind (while you’re
completing other steps in the development process).
This is a working document that should grow as you go.
If you’re thinking, “But I don’t know anything about them
because I never know who will enroll,” you’re kidding yourself.
You may not know their exact characteristics, but you surely
know a lot about the people who won’t be coming to your
course. Will you be teaching kings? Foreigners? Ph.D.s?
Veterans? Opera singers? Come on. Sit down and say what you
can about them. And if you really don’t know anything about
them, take a little time to find out. Talk to the registrar. Get
some names and call them on the phone. Talk to them. They’ll
be delighted to tell you about themselves. And they’ll be over-
whelmed at the thought that an instructor actually cares.
When you can write two to eight pages that answer the
questions on the checklist at the end of this chapter, you can
conclude that you know enough about your students to design
instruction for them.

NOTES:

• Describe them as they are, rather than as you wish they
were. Write what they can actually do rather than an ide-
alized version of those skills, e.g., “They’re not all high
school graduates,” rather than, “They should be high
school graduates.”

• Describe people rather than institutions or policies. Say
what people are like, rather than what the course will or
should be like, e.g.,“Most like to drink beer,” rather than,
“Company policy requires regular beer-drinking.”