The need for a systematic approach to training began with World War II when thousands of military personnel had to be trained in the shortest time possible. Various kinds of teaching machines, training films and teaching aids were used in military training sessions. With the publication of B.F.Skinner's book, The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching in 1954, behaviorists principles were used in the design of instructional strategies wherein the principles of reinforcement and feedback were introduced. Most popular being "Programme Learning" which emphasised the formulation of behavioural objectives, the breaking down of the instructional sequence into manageable units and providing feedback for each unit attained.
In 1956, Benjamin Bloom, introduced the The Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives, which provided instructors with a list of intellectual behaviours to be developed. Bloom also introduced the notion of 'mastery learning' in which a learners had to be brought to a level of mastery before going on to the following unit of learning.
About the same time, military researchers took the model of 'General Systems Theory' by Ludwig von Bertalanffy based on biological interactions and together with Bloom's Taxonomy, introduced the systems approach to instructional development which integrated content and the delivery of instruction.
In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik which started a space race between the USSR and the US. The led to a re-evaluation of the American education system especially with the teaching of science and mathematics. In 1962, Robert Glaser synthesises the work of various researchers and introduced the concept of "instructional deisgn" with a model that linked 'learner analysis' with the design and development of instruction. About the same time, Robert Mager proposed the small book on the construction of performance objectives which according to Mager should be measurable and exhibit a terminal behaviour.
In 1965, Robert Gagne published his influential book, The Conditions of Learning, in which he describe his instructional design theory which initially was behaviouristically based but later shifted to a more cognitive approach. Gagne's ID model, influenced many other design approaches and among them are the work of Dick & Carey, Duffy, etc.
Instructional Design
Anyone who is involved in developing Web-based instructional materials can benefit from a basic knowledge of instructional design principles. Instruction is different from mere information provision as explained by McManus:
Instruction is the deliberate organisarion and presentation of information with the end goal of promoting specific learning
- Don Latham
What is Instructional Design?
Instructional Design is the creation of detail specifications of an instructional system which involves development, implementation, evaluation and maintenance. In other words, instructional design is a process as well as a discipline (the branch of knowledge concerned with research and theory about instructional strategies).
Intstructional Design is the art and science of creating an instructional environment and materials that will bring the learner from the state of not being able to accomplish certian tasks to the state of being able to accomplish those tasks. Instructional design is based on theoretical and practical research in the areas of cognition, educational psychology, and problem solving. Basically, you can think about it as the creation of materials that will bring about a change in abilities in the student and bridge the gap from what the student can't do to what you would like them to be able to do.
This paper defines and explores the three major aspects of Gagne's approach to instructional design, which include: nine events of instruction, conditons of learning and learning outcomes.
This paper introduces some innovative methods for doing instructional design; surveys some examples of training models based on cognitive learning principles and offers a set of guidelines for designing cognitive-based training.
This paper is a personal declaration of the author on his thoughts on instructional design. It deals with the underlying assumptions he has made in doing ID and his professional beliefs about ID.
"Designing instructionally sound web courses is a difficult task for instructors who lack experience in interaction and web-based instructional design. Learning theories and instructional strategies can provide course designers with principles and design guidelines associated with effective instruction that can be utilised in the deisgn of web-based instruction".
"Instructional design of web based distance education courses is written about frequently, partly due to the focus on instructional design in distance education course development. In a print-based distance education contect, the course is deisgned prior to the beginning of the course and its form is fixed during the time the course is offered. Revisions often result in the reprinting of large portions fo the course. In web-based education, there is a similar emphasis on course design prior to the course offering, although revisions are easier to make than in print-based course modules. Also, instructot-student interaction cna be built into web-based courses".
The need for a systematic approach to training began with World War II when thousands of military personnel had to be trained in the shortest time possible. Various kinds of teaching machines, training films and teaching aids were used in military training sessions. With the publication of B.F.Skinner's book, The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching in 1954, behaviorists principles were used in the design of instructional strategies wherein the principles of reinforcement and feedback were introduced. Most popular being "Programme Learning" which emphasised the formulation of behavioural objectives, the breaking down of the instructional sequence into manageable units and providing feedback for each unit attained.
