Page 280 - Making Instruction Work

chap 21 3/11/97 5:18 PM Page 266

266 making instruction work

Opportunities Knocking
Once you’ve spotted improvement opportunities, you’ll
want some guidelines for sorting them out. It’s one thing to
spot an opportunity for improvement; it’s something else to
decide whether the improvement is worth making. Sometimes
an improvement would cost far more than it is worth. For
example, suppose you find a way to shorten a course by 10 per-
cent. That would be worth thinking about doing, especially if
the shorter course would be just as effective. But suppose the
cost of that potential improvement would be far greater than
the value of the improvement?
For another example, suppose you note that you could
make the course work a lot better (improve the effectiveness)
by letting students work for 4-hour stretches over 5 consecu-
tive days, rather than for 50 minutes 3 times each week for X
weeks. And suppose you also know that you’d have about as
much chance of changing local policy as a goose has of run-
ning a marathon on a pogo stick. What to do? Look for other
opportunities. Here’s a way to think about the priority for tak-
ing advantage of the opportunities.

Attack Rules

1. Fast fixes. Make the easiest changes first, regardless of
the payoff. For example, if you spot a dozen opportuni-
ties for improvement, and the easiest to implement
would be to make your overheads more readable, do that
first, even though it may add only a little to the effective-
ness of your instruction. Making the easiest fixes first
will get you moving and will give you some fast success-
es about which to feel good.

2. Independent fixes. Make the changes that don’t require