Background

Directions to Faculty

To prepare for a webquest to a site that will provide much more information and some primary source material from educational theorists, read over the following scheme for sorting out behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist practices and principles.

The Summary

The basic framework of a learning situation includes learners and a teacher in essentially a problem-solving situation. Students need to learn information to solve the problem, and they accomplish this by interacting with each other, the teacher, and course materials. As instructors we face these situations by analyzing our students, ourselves, our resources, the "problem" or learning task, and what knowledge the students will need to deal with it. We're always answering the pedagogical question: "What do I want my students to know, do, and believe as a result of the instructional experiences in each unit?" Then we have to figure out our teaching strategies, the exact content, and the right assessment method to detect learning.

The charts below summarize the dominant learning theories of the past century and some implications for instructional design, especially ways in which technology can get students thinking about and applying course concepts outside the classroom, increasing time on task and the quality of learning.

Learning Theories
Behaviorism		Cognitivism		Constructivism
proponents	B.F. Skinner	Jerome Bruner	Lev Vygotsky	John Dewey	Knowles
applications	training, e.g. flight simulators	any deep processing: exploring, organizing, synthesizing content		Collaborative learning
instructional design focus	Instructor designs the learning environmment.	Instructor manages problem solving and structured search activities, especially with group learning strategies.		Instructor mentors peer interaction and continuity of building on known concepts.
view of learner	basically passive, just responding to stimuli	Learners process, store, and retrieve information for use. (Bruner's Discovery Learning)		Learners create their own unique education because learning is based on prior knowledge.
assets	integrating complex muscular and cognitive activities	Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development focuses on interactive problem solving.		Learning is interactive, dialogic.
implications	Climate for Learning: Does the environment have the right stimuli to promote learning?	Readiness: Students will learn concepts that are maturing. Opportunity: ZPD = area between what a learner can do individually vs. assist by peer interaction, research and teaching. Learners Customize Their Learning: Provide a range of learning activities and concepts for core course objectives.		Prior Knowledge: Design learning to assist students to build on what they know. Inquirey Learning: Adult learners have a mutual vested interest in their learning and want to involve real experience; teachers are not the sole possessors of knowledge and perspective but co-learners and guides. (Knowles' andragogy)

Applications to Instructional Design
Presentation vs. Participation	Designing Instruction
Moore: Inducing knowledge results from student participation sparked by the right questions. Instructors mentor students, consult on content, motivate, help students integrate and contextualize learning, and run classes through participatory management principles.	Robert Gagne originated systematic instructional design, analyzing learners and course goals to make objectives, sequence instructional experiences, set the medium of instruction, and assess student performance and the course.
Behavioral objectives are the basis of performance assessment--for the students and for the course. Learning activities engage the learner by providing chances for interaction with information sources (instructor, other experts, peers). 9 Events of Instruction (Gagne): Each portion of instruction should engage learners, make them aware of objectives, trigger relevant prior knowledge, put students with material to be learned, guide students as needed, get students to use their learning and give feedback before assessing performance, and then help students to retain and transfer concepts. Actually, cognitive and affective learning interact complexly in modern course goals and objectives. Learning may involve "just-in-time" database access in addition to sequenced study. Applying instructional technology requires applying up-to-date findings in communications, computer science, and learning theory. Applying instructional technology also requires faculty to balance the interaction of students with content, instructor, and peers, along with selecting appropriate learning and assessment strategies specific to particular technologies.

Adapted from Judith Boetcher [Florida State University], "Pedagogy and Learning Strategies." California State University at Sacramento. http://www.csus.edu/pedtech/Learning.html (July 3, 1998). A modernized version of this article appeared as "Let's Go Boldly. . .to the Education Holodeck" in the June, 1998, Syllabus magazine (pages 18-22).

Judith V. Boettcher, Ph. D., is the Executive Director of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN). Before that, she directed Florida State University's Office of Interactive Distance Learning in the Educational Research department (1995). Prior to that she was the director of Education Technology Services in the Center for Academic Computing at Penn State University, where she was responsible for a support unit whose mission was to "Empower faculty in the integration of technologies to improve teaching." Dr. Boettcher was the chair of the Penn State University-wide Committee for Technology Classrooms and the author of various articles on the current and future use of technology in instruction. For instanced, she led a pre-conference seminar in distance learning at Syllabus 98.

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