Page 120 - Making Instruction Work

chap 10 3/11/97 4:57 PM Page 106

106 making instruction work

from each other in important ways). The more restrictions
placed on the entering student, the less likely you will be to find
people who meet your requirements (and the more likely they
will be similar to each other). The trick is to write prerequisites
that are realistic.

Let’s Get One Thing Straight!

But let’s get one thing straight. “Algebra 101” and
“Abnormal Psych” are not prerequisites. They may be the
names of a couple of courses, and they may be required for
administrative reasons before someone may enter your course,
but they don’t qualify as prerequisites to your course. A pre-
requisite is a skill that someone must have in order to benefit
from your instruction. If your course is taught in English, then
students must be able to handle that language before they can
benefit from your instruction. If you don’t intend to teach in
English, then an ability to understand the language is a pre-
requisite. If your course assumes that students already know
how to solve algebraic equations that have one variable, then
they will be less likely to benefit from your instruction if they
enter it without that skill. If you don’t intend to teach that skill,
then it will have to become a prerequisite.
The name of a course tells nothing about the skills that stu-
dents will have when completing the course. A course name
describes only an administrative requirement that must be ful-
filled; it says nothing about what students should be able to do
before entering your course.

Where Do They Come From?

Prerequisites are derived during course development.
Whenever you decide to assume that entering students will be
able to do this or that, you are establishing a prerequisite.Why?
Because prerequisites are formalized assumptions.