Page 152 - Making Instruction Work

chap 12 3/11/97 5:03 PM Page 138

138 making instruction work

5. “Could students compare their descriptions with those
two items and decide whether their performance is OK
or not? Yes, they could.

6. “There’s no problem about diagnostic feedback. If their
performance is not OK, they can decide what’s wrong
with it, provided that I provide them with a model of a
well-written relevant practice description and a descrip-
tion of the common errors.

7. “Would they know how to correct their work, given the
model, the checklist, and the description of common
errors? Yes, I know for certain they could do that.
Therefore I don’t have to provide an instructor or some-
one else to do it for them. And that’s it. I’m now ready to
write a brief description of what it would take to provide
relevant practice.”

Relevant Practice Description: To make practice possible, I
need to provide (a) objectives, (b) checklists, and (c) some-
thing to write the description with and on. For feedback, I need
to provide a model of the correct descriptions, completed
checklists for each objective, and a description of common
errors.

NOTE: Though it takes only minutes to prepare brief rel-
evant practice descriptions for a batch of objectives, it is a
key step in the development process. Without it, it’s just
too easy to provide wrong practice, partial practice, or no
practice at all in the important skills that need to be
learned.

To Learn More: See Resources #13 and #16.