Page 267 - Making Instruction Work

chap 21 3/11/97 5:18 PM Page 253

course improvement 253

3. Opportunities for improvement. When your evalua-
tions reveal discrepancies between measurements and
standards, you identify opportunities for improvement.
For example,“Five percent of my students didn’t accom-
plish all their objectives during the time allotted, but
they all should have,” means that there was a discrepan-
cy between the percent completing and the desired per-
cent completing. It also means that an opportunity for
improvement has been identified.

4. Improvement. Improvement is the result of action taken
to cause one or more characteristics to move closer to
the ideal or desired condition. For example, “I increased
the amount of practice time, and now only one percent
of my students don’t accomplish all the objectives in the
time available” means that action has been taken to suc-
cessfully reduce the difference between what exists and
what is desired.

What Should I Measure?

Depends on what you want to know. With all the statistical
techniques that are available, it would be possible to collect
mountains of numbers about a course. But most of them
would be worthless. Why? Simply because most of that infor-
mation would be of no use in making practical improvements.
Most of it would simply amount to counting angels dancing
on the head of a pin (which is a waste of time since we already
know the answer is 42). So relax. Course improvement is rela-
tively easy if you keep your eye on the possible.
As I said, what you measure is determined by what you want
to know. So what do you want to know about your course? As
soon as you decide what you want to know, you will know
what to measure. There are three main things you should want
to know about your course.