Making Instruction Work

1
Skill Hierarchies

• Making Instruction Work
• by Robert F. Mager
• Chapter 8 pgs. 81-89
• Team Max
• Kellie Jo Borzenski
• September 9, 1998

2
Brain surgery before medical school??

• Is it smart to put a scalpel in my hand before
  teaching me how to use it?
• If you know me, its not!
• So, teach me how first.

3
Whats a Skill Hierarchy?

• A visual diagram that shows the relationships
  between skills needed to perform a task.
• It identifies skills that must be learned before
  others.
• It identifies skills that can be learned in any
  order.

4
What does a Skill Hierarchy look like?

• A skill hierarchy looks very much like a
  organizational chart.
• It doesnt depict relationships between people,
  places, divisions, etc..
• It depicts relationships between skills

5
Given utensils, equipment, oven, and recipe, make
a cake.
Measure ingredients
Read the Recipe
Use oven
Use utensils
Read English
Read numbers
6
How are Hierarchies constructed?

• 1. Create a task analysis and refer to the
  skills.
• 2. Consider any pair of skills and answer the
  question
• Can these two skills be learned in any order?
• If yes - they can be drawn side by side in the
  hierarchy.
• If no - the skill needed to be learned first must
  be drawn under the other.
• 3. Answer the same set of questions for each pair
  of skills.
• 4. Add arrows to show direction.
• 5. Test your hierarchy.

7
NOTE..

• Sometimes the order in which things are taught
  doesnt matter.
• This is valuable to know because then you can
  leave the sequencing decisions to the students.

8
Credits

• http//www.iconbazaar.com
• http//www.barrysclipart.com
• Mager, Robert F.. Making Instruction Work.
  AtlantaCenter for Effective Preformance,
  Inc.,1997.