I teach an online course. Half my student contact time is because the
participants (mainly teachers) do not read the instructions.
They do not pay attention to detail.
They mismanage sequential activities.
They proceed when they do not know what something is. Like in one case,
person X met an instruction "enter the URL here". They proceeded, not
knowing what a URL was (an omiting this step), and wondered why "It didn't
work"
A tentative hypothesis: often they think they know what it says.
can't students read and follow directions? Why?
Could it be:
1. they are impatient, they just want to get in and do it?
2. a learning style issue. "In the last resort, read the manual". before
then, just tinker around.
3. they are not trained to do so, it is an incidental skill and assumed.
One very controversital curriculum change here a few years back introduced
"Following instructions" as an assessable part of practical assessment. It
improved things overnight. BUT there was not always a spillover to normal
class work.
4. Our instructions often are poorly structured. Intranet delivery of lab
practicals with hyperlinks to help, multiple paths to reach a specific set
of outcomes can really help. Structured activites from general/overview to
the specific detal can help.
5. They are lazy. They prtefer to get it from the instrucor.
??
Tina
Tina Fanetti
Physics Instructor
Western Iowa Technical Community College
4647 Stone Ave
Sioux City IA 51102
712-274-8733 ext 1429