What makes good instruction good?

 

I have wondered about this question for years and wandered around various answers during that time. I have asked distinguished colleagues such as Bob Gagné and Dave Merrill and Joost Lowyck and Oets Kolk Bouwsma and others … their consensus was that they did not really know. I do not know. But others claim to know. Some might say things like the following:

1.      Most students got high grades;

2.      Most students took a follow-on course;

3.      Most students rated the course highly;

And other such answers …

But none of the answers had anything to do with sustained knowledge or performance.

So many of those involved in higher education pretend to know but have no clue.

First, lets clarify what instruction is. According to Gagné, instruction is that which supports learning and performance.

I choose to focus on learning next. Again according to  Gagné, learning is demonstrated by stable and sustained changes in what a person knows or can do. That means that in order to establish that learning has occurred, one must determine what changes took place. The change cannot be not having taken the course before … the change should be linked to knowledge and performance. Without premeasures, one cannot establish a change. Moreover, without long after the course finished, one cannot establish a significant and sustained change. Therefore, most instructors are NOT in a position to claim that learning has occurred. Nor are the students. I took many advance math courses but am unable to recall or do very much that could do to earn As in those courses. I learned NOTHING but got good grades.

Now we have true believers who claim that having measurable objectives and relevant activities and practice that one can ensure that learning occurs. Most of those true believers do not have doctoral degrees nor have done research on learning. Yet they so willingly browbeat others … especially the elders who have had decades of experience.

So the show goes on. To get ahead, many people just go along. A few decide to go alone. I moving closer to the few. I am convinced I have wasted my life in higher education. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” Look it up or ask someone else for the reference. Looking might get you to thinking. After all, learning is about searching … not about telling or listening.

Mike Spector, Aka, an embittered professor