Page 134 - Making Instruction Work
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chap 11  3/11/97 4:59 PM  Page 120




             120                making instruction work


                3. What conditions are stated?

                   A malfunctioning bomb, one symptom, and a standard
                   tool kit.

                4. Add the conditions to the test item.

                   You will find a Model 239 atomic bomb in room 10.
                   The problem is that the detonator is showing an
                   intermittent short. Use the standard tool kit provided
                   to repair the malfunction. You will have 30 minutes.

                5. Can all the conditions be provided as stated in the objec-
                   tive?
                   Not on your life, they can’t.

                I can hear you shouting,“I am not going to give students any
             kind of bomb to be tested on no matter what the objective
             says!” Good for you. But while I can appreciate your feeling,
             you’d be only partly right. True, it would be impractical to pro-
             vide the real thing here, even though trainees will be working
             on the real thing on the job. But that should never mean that
             you will ask for anything less than the performance called for
             by the objective, in this case, repairing. No matter what else
             you choose to do, you should ask the students to demonstrate
             repairing behavior, rather than talk-about-repairing or write-
             about-repairing. No multiple-choice exams, please. Only by
             having them perform per the objective can you find out
             whether the objective has been achieved.
                 It’s the conditions you will modify, not the performance. So
             find the closest approximation to the real thing you can, and
             then ask for the actual performance on that. How about a
             wooden bomb of some sort? How about a real one that has
             had the oomph taken out of it? What’s your best offer?
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