Page 146 - Making Instruction Work

chap 12 3/11/97 5:03 PM Page 132

132 making instruction work

5. Corrective feedback. If students know what’s wrong with
their practice performance, will they know what to do to
fix it? If so, that’s all you need to do. If not, you’ll need
to provide an external source of information about how
to correct the performance (e.g., another person; written
description of common problems; checklist of probable
remedies).

6. The final step is simply to take your answers to Items 1-5
and draft them into a short description of relevant prac-
tice for each objective.This description may be as short as
one that says,“Provide tools, schematics, faulty thermo-
stat, list of tolerances of adequate operation. Student will
practice repairing. Instructor will provide diagnostic and
corrective feedback.” Sometimes more “right stuff” will
have to be provided to make the practice relevant to the
objective, possibly including an instructor or other stu-
dent to supply feedback by observing the practice while
making marks on a checklist.
Whatever the result, the importance of practice—relevant
practice—cannot be over-emphasized. As you well know,
doing is the key to competence. Since the conditions under
which the doing takes place can be critical to student improve-
ment, it pays to complete this step in the development process
with care, no matter what or where you are teaching. It usual-
ly takes only a few seconds after some practice.

NOTE: Sometimes you will need little or nothing to pro-
vide the conditions for relevant practice. When this hap-
pens, you may tend to feel as though you’ve done
something “wrong” or forgotten something. When that
happens, try this: Imagine your student in an empty
room and then ask yourself what you will need to provide
to make it possible for that student to practice the objec-
tive. If it’s only a pencil and a piece of paper, so be it. If it’s
only a musical score, so be it.