How Designers Make Decisions: A Descriptive Model of Instructional Design for Informal Learning in Museums

In response to a call for theories of instructional design that are grounded in practice, I conducted a naturalistic study of the instructional design process for three permanent museum exhibits. An analysis of the data indicated that design involves a series of decisions, each of which has 4 components: • Design goals: principles to be achieved through the decision process and that must be realized before the choice is considered complete. • Design resources: the materials–both physical and intellectual–available to present information. • Design techniques: the strategies for achieving the goals using the design resources available. • Constraints: outside influences such as budget and schedule that limit the use of resources and techniques to achieve a goal. Each phase in the design process is characterized by certain types of decisions in which one of the four components dominates. Design team members participate to different extents in design decisions based on their roles. In theory, the model should transfer from museum exhibition design to instructional design. Further study would indicate the extent as well as which design decisions are guided by research, theory, or instinct, so we might understand and ultimately improve decisions about instructional programs.     

间性理论视野下的数字化英语写作课堂教学设计

根据主体间性、媒体间性和文化间性,指出数字化英语写作教学需要遵循的交互性、多模态化、生态化等原则;进而提出数字化英语写作课堂教学设计的原则模型MAP(MultimodalApple PIE,或称"多模态苹果派"),并分析讨论了MAP模型应用中应予重视的三个问题:首先,强化主体互动,追求有效教学;其次,加强MAP课堂教学设计,实施多模态教学;最后,整合"三多"(多媒体、多模态、多元识读),推动社团实践,创新英语写作学习文化。     

How Do Instructional‐Design Practitioners Make Instructional‐Strategy Decisions?

Many theories have been proposed to help instructional designers make instructional‐strategy decisions, yet it is not clear if these theories are actually used by ID practitioners. This study used a web‐survey to examine the design strategies of 113 ID practitioners. The survey asked respondents to rate how frequently they used learning or ID theories as well as 10 other design strategies, to help make instructional‐strategy decisions. Respondents were also asked how often they used different information sources to learn about new theories, trends, and strategies, and to respond to a set of contrasting statements depicting objectivist vs. construc‐tivist assumptions. The results indicate that ID practitioners most often rely on interaction with others both as a means of making instructional‐strategy decisions and of learning about new theories, trends, and strategies. Only fifty percent of the respondents said they regularly use theories when making instructional‐strategy decisions, using other design strategies more frequently instead; and most practitioners are eclectic in their underlying philosophical assumptions. Based on these results, we discuss implications for training and ongoing support of instructional designers.     

Review of current studies in instructional design theory in Korea: major trends and future directions

This article reviewed recent studies of instructional design theory in Korea to explore major trends and suggest future directions. Based on the analysis of 40 articles from the Journal of Educational Technology between 1994 and 2006, this study identified six trends: little emphasis on the conceptualization of instructional design theory; dominant interest in instructional design theories for higher-order thinking skills or self-regulated learning; special interest in instructional design theories for motivation and interactivity; emergent studies on the generic topic of instructional theories; heavy emphasis on instructional design theory for computer or Web environment; and sparse developmental research. Future directions of study for instructional design theory in Korea are suggested in response to issues arising from these trends.     

Interactivity in Video-based Models

In this review we argue that interactivity can be effective in video-based models to engage learners in relevant cognitive processes. We do not treat modeling as an isolated instructional method but adopted the social cognitive model of sequential skill acquisition in which learners start with observation and finish with independent, self-regulated performance. Moreover, we concur with the notion that interactivity should emphasize the cognitive processes that learners engage in when they interact with the learning environment. The four-component instructional design (4C/ID) model is used to define a set of cognitive processes: Elaboration and induction enable learners to construct schemas, whereas compilation and strengthening enable learners to automate these schemas. Pacing, cues, control over appearance, prediction, working in dyads, personalized task selection, and reflection prompts are identified as guidelines that might support learners to interactively construct schemas. Personalized task selection with part-task practice helps learners to interactively automate schemas.     

Rapid prototyping: An alternative instructional design strategy

There is a design methodology calledrapid prototyping which has been used successfully in software engineering. Given the similarities between software design and instructional design, we argue that rapid prototyping is a viable model for instructional design, especially for computer-based instruction. Additionally, we argue that recent theories of design offer plausible explanations for the apparent success of rapid prototyping in software design. Such theories also support the notion that rapid prototyping is appropriate for instructional design. We offer guidelines for the use of rapid prototyping and list possible tradeoffs in its application.     

A reflexive model for teaching instructional design

Although there are numerous models to practive instructional design (ID), few instructional models to teach instructional design have been documented. This article documents a five-year study of two instructors who collaborated on formally studying their teaching of a master's level instructional design course. A reflexive instructional approach was used, in which the teachers examined their teaching while students were being prompted to reflect on their learning of instructional design through a course-long ID project. In this article we summarize our views on learning, teaching, and instructional design. A design and development framework from developmental research (Richey & Nelson, 1996) was used to describe our teaching in terms of the design decisions, model implementation, and model evaluation across six deliveries of the ID course from 1994–1998.     

Exploring the Roles of Social Presence and Gender Difference in Online Learning

Online learning has become more popular in higher education with its advantages of flexibility and accessibility. However, there have been challenges to students’ learning experience in online learning. One critical challenge would be providing interactions between students and instructors as good or effective as in the face‐to‐face environment. However, providing face‐to‐face interactions in online learning is not feasible because students and instructors are not physically present together. In this study, we introduce and empirically investigate social presence as student learning experience in online learning in which physical presence does not exist. Drawing upon the social presence and online learning literature, we propose a research model to explore how the interactivity of communication tools can drive social presence and student satisfaction in online learning. Furthermore, this study examines gender difference as a moderator in the model. Data were collected from undergraduate students who were taking online business statistics courses where an interactive communication tool was required to use for class communication and collaboration. The results showed that social presence driven by tool interactivity had a significant impact on student satisfaction in online learning. We also found that gender difference moderated the relationship between tool interactivity and social presence in online learning.     

论现代远程教育系统的交互

在远程教育中，交互性是决定教育质量的一个重要因素，交互活动直接影响着远程课程的学习效果。现代远程教学模式以现代通信网络为支撑平台，是一种以交互式为中心的自学习模式，它是未来教学模式的主流。交互方式的选择与应用，是进行远程教育课程教学设计的关键组成部分，需要教育工作和课件开发的共同参与和设计。交互技术飞速发展，新技术的出现与应用推动了远程教育的交互方式的变革和交互性的加强。对远程教育活动的交互性评价是衡量远程教育过程质量的一个重要方面，可以从教育的社会本质、教育效果和教育目标、课件、教育和学习等多方面进行评价分析。     

Designing a constructive learning activity with interactive elements: the effects of perspective-shifting and the quality of source material

When teachers or instructors create computer-based learning environments, they often solely consider technical aspects of interactivity. As a consequence, learners’ main role is to respond to requests of the learning environment (e.g. by answering multiple-choice questions). This aspect of interactivity is, however, not sufficient to understand the complex benefits of interactivity for learners’ knowledge acquisition. In order to create a higher level of interactivity, an instructional task that encourages learners to design learning materials for fellow learners is used in this paper. We will show that this instructional task can induce interactive elements because learners are encouraged to take not only their own perspective into account when designing. In addition, we investigated if the quality of source material affects knowledge acquisition in design tasks. In a two-by-two design, students (n?=?108) had to design either a learning environment for others (i.e. to perform perspective-shifting), or a representation of acquired knowledge for themselves (no perspective-shifting) with less or more coherent information sources. Results indicate that performing perspective-shifting can be a powerful technique for eliciting interactive learning behavior and, thus, for learning. The quality of information sources does not influence knowledge acquisition to a great extent.     

Interactivity and multimedia interfaces

Multimedia technology offers instructional designers an unprecedented opportunity to create richly interactive learning environments. With greater design freedom comes complexity. The standard answer to the problems of too much choice, disorientation, and complex navigation is thought to lie in the way we design the interactivity in a system. Unfortunately, the theory of interactivity is at an early stage of development. After critiquing the decision cycle model of interaction – the received theory in human computer interaction – I present arguments and observational data to show that humans have several ways of interacting with their environments which resist accommodation in the decision cycle model. These additional ways of interacting include: preparing the environment, maintaining the environment, and reshaping the cognitive congeniality of the environment. Understanding how these actions simplify the computational complexity of our mental processes is the first step in designing the right sort of resources and scaffolding necessary for tractable learner controlled learning environments.     

Interactivity and interactive functions in web-based learning systems: a technical framework for designers

The concept of interactivity and its implications for Web-based learning system design is re-examined. The author reviews the literature on the interactivity concept from the perspectives of communication, computer-assisted instruction, distance education, and interactive dimensions and functions for Web systems. A proposal is then made for a technical framework for including such dimensions and functions in Web-based learning systems. To enhance the framework's ease-of-use and overall effectiveness, each interactive function was submitted to two panels of experts for assessment and evaluation in terms of instructional necessity and programming difficulty. A discussion of the panels’ feedback and the potential for future research concludes the article.     

CoNoteS2: A Software Tool for Promoting Self-Regulation

Integrating state-of-the-art computer technologies with pedagogically sound practice provides interesting challenges and potentially significant opportunities to simultaneously promote and examine learning in context. This paper unfolds in 3 parts. We begin by introducing the reader to contemporary theories of self-regulation. We present a 4-phase model of self-regulating and a sparse literature on instructional design for SRL. Second, we build on this theory to describe features of CoNoteS2 (a prototype electronic notebook) that support self-regulation through tacit and explicit scaffolding. And finally, we describe the role of CoNoteS2 in researching about how students self-regulate their own learning. Our intent is to illustrate how contemporary learning theory can be used to drive instructional innovation and technological enhancement for the classroom.     

The Phoenix Rising: Emergent models of instructional design

The blurring of distinctions between online and distance education in many parts of the developed world has led to reflections on the strategies and processes by which we create effective online learning environments for the distance education learner. In this article we argue that the foundational models of instructional design that typically inform the design, development, and delivery of online environments do not always support the epistemology and pedagogy that embodies the online environment. Through an analysis of current approaches to instructional design we present a case for adopting principles of emergence theory as a means to best harness the power and potential of design and development for online distance education. Using a prototype three‐phase design model that embodies emergent principles we advocate that to achieve the full potential of interaction and community networks through online communications requires a repositioning of roles and processes associated with “instructional design.”     

Instructional design and intelligent systems: shifts in the designer's decision-making role

In instructional design, decisions about which instructional methods to use are made well in advance of their implementation. While expert teachers select methods while instruction is underway and are well placed to adapt instruction to changing conditions, designers must try to predict ahead of time how instructional conditions will change. This is difficult to do because design procedures are non-deterministic and instructional theory is incomplete. In intelligent instructional systems, it is possible to shift certain aspects of decision-making back to the implementation phase of instruction. This enables systems to adapt to changing conditions and to present information in a variety of formats. The designer becomes less concerned with selecting methods and puts more effort into writing rules that allow systems to select methods once instruction has begun.     

A Matter of Design: A Proposal to Encourage the Evolution of Design in Instructional Design

Kerr wrote of the black box of design decisions—that time when the “heart of an instructional solution first appears.” Petroski writes of judgment as indispensable for engineering design decisions. Both instructional design and engineering are design sciences, yet engineering has a rich tradition of discussing and reflecting upon design decisions. Engineering shares a language by which they can discuss the decisions that underlay designs and, so may learn from failures and allow their practice to evolve. This paper suggests means by which instructional design may begin to develop a language of design. Design is depicted as a process involving three spheres. Sphere One—skills, Sphere Two—practice, and Sphere Three—application. By developing a language to discuss and reflect upon Sphere Two processes, practitioners may share their practice, learn from each other, and encourage the field to evolve so that we may meet the changing needs of a knowledge economy. Herein, a proposal to encourage the development and use of a language to discuss Sphere Two decisions is detailed and initial steps are explored.     

Didactising: Continuing the work of Leen Streefland

In this paper we present three cases of instructional design that illustrates both horizontal didactising, the activity of using already established principles to design instruction, and vertical didactising the activity of developing new tools and principles for instructional design. The first case illustrates horizontal didactising by elaborating how the constructs chains of signification and models were used to design an instructional sequence involving linear growth. The second and third cases illustrate vertical didactising by developing argumentation analyses and generative listening, respectively, as instructional design tools. In the second case, argumentation analyses emerge as a tool that other designers can use to anticipate the quality of conversations that can occur as students engage in tasks prior to implementing the instructional sequence. The third case develops the notion of generative listening as a conceptual tool within the context of designing differential equations instruction to gain insights into what are, for students, experientially-real starting points that are mathematical in nature and to provide inspirations for revisions to instructional sequences. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Teachers designing curriculum as professional development: A model for transformational science teaching

We have designed a model for transformational science teaching focused on linking theory and practice through curriculum decision making that has been the framework for professional development sessions for middle-grade science teachers during the past 5 years. Interviews with teachers revealed that their experiences with curriculum development were of significant value in making decisions concerning the design of classroom environments. As teachers reflected on current research about teaching and learning, in collaboration with university scientists and science educators, they were informed by theoretical perspectives which held implications for their practice. Curriculum development became a vehicle for professional development and school reform; however, it was vital that the teachers were in clear communication with their administrators and communities concerning reform issues. Students and teachers from schools implementing the model and from control sites were interviewed to determine the model's influence on instructional practices and student attitude and achievement in science. The five-phase model for transformational science teaching is discussed here, accompanied by teacher comments about tensions experienced at each phase. This discussion is followed by an analysis of teacher and student interview data that reveals teachers' use of instructional strategies and students' attitudes toward science. Results and analysis of student performance on a mandated end-of-grade science test are also included. From this evidence, we recommend a new design for professional development opportunities for teachers that engages them in decision making as they reflect about the connections between theory and practice and the value of continually testing, revising, and reevaluating curriculum and instructional issues. J Res Sci Teach 34: 773–789, 1997.     

Ask the instructional designers: A cursory glance at practice in the workplace

The purpose of this exploratory study was to make better connections between what is professed in instructional design degree programs and what happens in the workplace. Findings from the study of how three corporate instructional designers navigated and made sense of their daily practice included the factors that mostly influence their instructional design (ID) decisions, their perspectives on ID theories and models, how they compensated for any deficits in their knowledge or skills, and their hiring preferences.     

Instructional implications of text processing research

Basic theoretical approaches in the history of text comprehension research have been reviewed and compared to their instructional implications: readability research, comprehensibility research, traditional psycholinguistics, traditional elementaristic models of text processing, and new holistic models of text processing. Contrary to a sceptical view, which denies the practical instructional relevance of text comprehension research, recommendations for instructional design can be shown to be closely related to specific theoretical perspectives. Especially in the last years important advances in research have taken place which have considerably changed our picture of text comprehension. The more refined understanding of text processing implies more differentiated and specific recommendations for instructional design, which go far beyond everyday knowledge about text comprehension. This is illustrated on the basis of new holistic theoretical approaches combined with the notion of procedural semantics. The instructional value of the new theories on text processing is seen in their heuristic function. They provide new perspectives on instructional problems and suggest new ways of thinking. Thus, they are a basis for attaining a more comprehensive and differentiated analysis and, thus, for better founded instructional decisions.