Page 18 - Making Instruction Work

chap 2 3/11/97 4:44 PM Page 6

6 making instruction work

hurt, belittle, bore, frustrate, humiliate, insult, waste the time
of, or otherwise demean, our students. In other words, in addi-
tion to fulfilling our instructional mandate, our goal should be
to do no harm. To accomplish these intents, we seek out proce-
dures and practices that will give our students the skills they
need, as well as the motivation to use them and the eagerness
to learn more.

The World of Human Performance

But accomplishing these goals requires us to use more tools
than are available within the confines of good instructional
practices. In fact, the world of human performance is a whole
lot bigger than instruction. Before venturing into specifics,
therefore, I’d like to offer some perspective on this larger per-
formance world.

Instructional Technology

When we set out to help people to do something that they
cannot now do but need to do, we dip into a bag of procedures
currently referred to as “instructional technology.” These are
the techniques and procedures by which we influence what
people can do. When there is a skill or knowledge deficiency to
be eliminated, one dips into this bag and selects one or more
remedies to solve the problem.
TERMINOLOGY NOTE: Though the current rubric is
“instructional technology,”we’re talking about the craft of
instruction, about the best procedures currently available
for modifying human capabilities through instruction.
Figure 2.1 names some of these procedures.