Page 242 - Making Instruction Work

chap 19 3/11/97 5:15 PM Page 228

228 making instruction work

demonstrations, provide clarifying explanations, and answer
questions? How else would one gain credibility with the stu-
dents? How can anyone teach something they don’t know?
What may be a little less obvious is that there is more to
making instruction work than just knowing the subject mat-
ter. Clearly, how you teach can be just as important as what
you teach. So before entering the classroom, or computer, or
video studio, you’ll want to make sure that you can apply at
least four of the important practices that have much to do with
how well the instruction will work, and with how eager the
students will be to learn more; success definitions, perfor-
mance consequences, modeling, and self-efficacy.

Success Definitions

Recently I questioned several expert instructors individual-
ly about their vision of instructional success. I asked each of
them, “What would things look like if your instruction were
totally successful?” Though they used different words in their
replies, the substance was quite similar. Here is a summary of
how these instructors visualize instructional success.

1. Students leave the instruction having accomplished the
objectives set out for them.
2. They are eager to apply what they learned.

3. They are eager to learn more.
4. They can speak coherently about what they have learned.

In other words, successful instruction sends students away
who can do and are willing to do, who have a favorable atti-
tude toward the subject and are eager to learn more. To make
that happen you’ll need to be especially attentive to what hap-
pens to your students during their learning. For example,
students who are rewarded for arriving late (by having