Page 202 - Making Instruction Work

chap 16 3/11/97 5:09 PM Page 188

188 making instruction work

“We don’t have time for that. We consider the maiden
flights the tryouts.”

“Oh.”

Or,

“Has this medicine been through clinical testing?”
“What?”

“Has this medicine been tested on humans?”

“No need for that. We’ll know it works if nobody dies
from it.”

“Oh.”
You see the point. No matter how good we are at instruc-
tional development, we still don’t know for sure whether, or
how well, the instruction will work until we try it out. If there
is no time for a tryout before a full class of students shuffles in,
then the maiden course will have to be considered the tryout.
But don’t set the materials in concrete until the results of at
least one tryout are in. Make only enough copies of things to
take you through the first cycle. Believe me, you will want to
fix some things before anyone else sees or experiences it. I’d
rather have the errors and opportunities for improvement
pointed out before “going public” rather than after, wouldn’t
you? Wouldn’t you like to know what the critic will say before
opening night, rather than after—so you can have a chance to
smooth out the lumps?

How to Do It

You already know how to conduct a course, so there’s little
to learn before being ready to conduct a tryout. The main