Page 98 - Making Instruction Work
P. 98
chap 8 3/4/97 3:43 PM Page 84
84 making instruction work
Example #1: This hierarchy shows the skills that must be in
place before someone can practice the entire task of baking a
cake.
Figure 8.1
Given utensils, equipment, oven, and recipe, make
and bake a cake. Criteria: Cake matches photo with
recipe and is edible.
Measure
Use oven Read the recipe
ingredients
Use utensils Read numbers Read English
Read it from the top down, like this: Before being ready to
practice the entire objective (baking a cake), anyone would
have to be able to measure ingredients, use an oven, and read
the recipe, and these three skills can be learned and practiced
in any order. Before they can practice measuring ingredients,
they need to be able to use utensils and read numbers, and
these two skills can be learned and practiced in any order. And
so on.
As we have all been victims of those who have not had the
appropriate sub-skills in place before practicing the entire
task, we should applaud the existence of the hierarchy and vig-
orously promote its use in the design of instruction.
