1. 1
A discussion of the trends in learning theory and the
practical implications for instructional design.
Tell me and I'll forget;
show me and I may remember;
involve me and I'll understand.
- Chinese Proverb

2. 2
Overview
Theory
Constructivism
Behvaviorism
Cognitivism
Introductory Remarks
Applications

3. 3
The goal of this presentation is to stir your imagination...
- to get you to challenge your assumptions about how
to develop training.
- to get you to reflect on the nature of learning

4. 4
“The field of instructional design has enjoyed
considerable success over the last two decades...
Based largely on behavioristic premises ID is
adjusting to cognitive ways of viewing the learning
process.”
but it is now facing some of the pains expected along
with its growth.
Quoted from “Cognitive approaches to Instructional
Design”, Wilson, Jonassen
and Cole

5. 5
“In attempting to simplify learning in order to improve
instructional efficiency and effectiveness, Instructional
Systems Technology may be short circuiting relevant
mental processing.
Quoted from “Objectivism vs.. Constructivism: Do We
Need a New Philosophical Paradigm?” , D. Jonassen
ETR&D Vol. 39, No. 3. PP 5-14 ISNN 1042-1629
Designers attempts to simplify learning risk supplanting
the complexity that is inherent in the learning process or
the task to be learned.”

6. 6
The digital environment poses several problems
for Instructional designers:
- New digital technologies must be understood in
order to develop course content.
- Our increasing use of e-learning requires familiarity
with new software tools.
- e-learning, with its lack of personal contact, places
an additional burden on the curriculum.
- Students are now knowledge workers whose tasks
are difficult to define.

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“Hostility toward theory usually means an
opposition to other people’s theories and an
oblivion to one’s own.”
Terry Eagleton

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- explain
We use theories to help us:
- understand
A theory is nothing more than a plausible explanation.
- predict

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Everyone carries around with them their own
personal theories
We use theories to guide our perceptions and
actions.
Theories are what we use to understand an
otherwise impossibly confusing world.

10. 10
What is theory ?
Theory provides a general explanation for observations
made over time.
Theory explains and predicts behavior.
Theory can never be established beyond all
doubt.
Theory may be modified.
Theories are seldom thrown out completely
but in some cases have been widely
accepted for a long time and then
disproved.

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“Theory places things in a causal
context that is wider than the causal
context provided by common sense.”
Paul Feyerabend

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“Theories are built on piles driven down into
the swamp; not down to any given base.
Although they are really firm enough to carry
the structure.”
Karl Popper

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Instructional design and development must be
based on some theory of learning or cognition.
Truly effective design is enabled only when the
developer has developed reflexive awareness of
the theoretical basis underlying the design.
Why all this talk about
theory?

14. 14
Florida State University
Masters in distance Learning
EDP 5216 Theories of Learning and Cognition in Instruction
Syracuse University
Master in Instructional Design
IDE 614 Instructional Design Theory and practice
University of South Alabama
MS Instructional Design & Development
EPY 502 Psychological Principles of Learning
Boise State
MS Instructional and performance Technology
IPT 535 Learning Theory for Instructional Designers
Utah State University
MS Instructional Development
Inst. 6260: Instructional Design Theory
Rhodes University
MA in Distributed Learning
DL 501 Learning Theory and its Application in the Design &
Development of Distributed Learning

15. 15
There is said to be a qualitative change in
society in these times. It is variously labeled
post industrialism, the information age or
postmodernism.

16. 16
Newtonian Physics Quantum PhysicsContinuum
Newtonian Physics Quantum PhysicsRupture
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas Kuhn 1962
What followed was chaos theory, fractal theory and other
indeterminancy theories that are redefining the natural
sciences

17. 17
Modernism / Postmodernism
“Contemporary societies with their new technologies,
novel forms of culture and striking economic, social and
political transformations….
constitute a decisive rupture with previous forms of life,
bringing to an end the modern era.”
The Postmodern Turn, Best & Kellner 1997

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The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
Jean Francois Lyotard 1979
Unquestioning belief in Reason & Rationality
Empiricism and Objectivism
Apodictic Truth
Postmodernism challenges the
concept of Metanarratives:
Idealism
Faith in Progress
In postmodernity, society confronts its own
rationalist and technicist myths (truth,
reason, freedom, totality and representation
just as earlier society confronted the
naturalist and religious myths of feudalism.

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Modernism Postmoderism
Quantitative emphasis
So what’s the relevance of Postmodernism for
instructional design?
Objectivism Subjectivism
Qualitative emphasis
Instructivism Constructivism

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I say Instructivism I say Constructivism
However, all are not in agreement.

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What is the dominant learning theory under
which most insructional design is developed

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Behaviorism is the school of psychology
that seeks to explain human behavior
entirely in terms of observable and
measurable responses to environmental
stimuli.

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Learning is a gradual strengthening of the
learned relationship between cue and
behavior
The relationship is strengthened by
reinforcement.

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Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of
behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its
methods,
nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the
readiness with which they lend themselves to
interpretation in terms of consciousness.”
J. B. Watson Speech, 1913
Some History
“Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely
objective experimental branch of natural science.

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Stimulus Response

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Criterion Referenced Instruction is based on Behaviorist
theory.
• A stimulus is provided, usually in the form of a
short presentation or a reading assignment.
• A response is required, often in the form of the
answer to a question.
• Feedback is given as to the accuracy of the
response.
• Inaccurate responses result in either a
repetition of the original stimulus or a
somewhat modified and often simpler version
of it.

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New learning theory is the shift in focus from
stimulus response associations to mental
representations.

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What are these new learning
theories?
Cognitivism
Constructivism

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“Learning, according to cognitive
psychology, is concerned not so much
with behavioral responses but rather
with what learners need to know and...
how they acquire it.”
David Jonassen

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Cognitive theories of learning focus on the mind
and attempt to model how information is received
by accommodation or assimilation, and then
restored and recalled

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Stimulus Response
Assimilation
or
Accommodation

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The mind has the ability to:
formulate
synthesize
analyze
received information and stimuli,
and extract from -
in order to produce outputs that cannot
be directly attributed to the inputs
given.

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What does assimilation and
accommodation have to do with
developing curriculum?
More about Assimilation & Accommodation
Curriculum Content should vary
depending on whether information
will be assimilated or
accommodated

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A Cognitive Model
Input
Response
Sensory
Memory
Short Term
Memory
Long Term
Memory

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Constructivism builds on cognitive theory
and holds that knowledge is not passively
received, but is actively built up
(Constructed) by the thinking subject.
Constructivism advocates Active Learning

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Learning is an active process in which
learners construct new ideas or
concepts based upon their current and
past knowledge.
The learner selects and transforms
information, constructs hypotheses,
and makes decisions, relying on
cognitive structures to do so.
Cognitive structures which can be
thought of as schemas or mental
models provide meaning and
organization to experiences and allows
the individual to go beyond the
information given.

37. 37
Ideas and thoughts cannot be
communicated in the sense that
meaning is packaged into words and
images and communicated to students
who unpack the meaning.

38. 38
Information
Information
Information
Information
Enough already!

39. 39
According to constructivist learning
theory:
Knowledge encoded from data by
learners themselves will be more
flexible, transferable, and useful….
than knowledge encoded for them by
experts and transmitted to them by an
instructor or other delivery agent.
If you don’t take anything else away from this
presentation, please reflect on and try to internalize this
and the next slide...
Learners learn best when they discover
or are led to discover for themselves.

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Students must be enabled to construct
their own meanings with the aid of
curriculum.
Each student must be enabled to
build her or his own conceptual
constructs that will enable the
ordering of knowledge for use in
unique work situations.
Learners learn best what they discover
or are led to discover for themselves.

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“The idea of learner control is essential to
constructivism because constructivist
learning relies on the learner doing the
work of learning”
(Dershem 1996)

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Learning is a social, collaborative
activity
Learners can only interpret information
in the context of their own experiences.
Learning occurs most effectively in
context.

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We try to design curriculum that will
result in students acquiring the discreet
knowledge they need.
and construct meaning relative to their
own needs backgrounds and interests.
However they will interpret the
curriculum in the context of their own
experiences and existing knowledge,

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Students build on their pre-existing
knowledge
- to actively construct new knowledge
collaboratively,
- following learning paths that suit their
own interests and needs.
- in a rich contextual setting,

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Too often our curriculum teaches
students to follow rules or procedures,
which they aren’t inclined to do.

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Resist the temptation to be solely
driven by content that is easily
developed and measured.
Be sensitive to subtle yet highly valued
outcomes and effects.
It may or may not be possible to reduce
what is to be learned down to facts or
procedures
Many important learning outcomes
can’t be easily measured.

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In day to day practice knowledge workers make
innumerable judgements of quality for which
they cannot state adequate criteria, and they
display skills for which they cannot state rules or
procedures.
D. A Schon The Reflective practitioner
In other words, the work of experts can’t be
reduced to easily taught processes or tasks,
and training based only on objective analysis
cannot make experts.

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Knowledge workers need:
- conceptual understanding
- non-procedural problem solving skills.

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“The only remedy is to design rich
learning experiences and interactions.
The best analysis almost always falls
short of the mark.
Then learners can pick up, on their
own, that which would be missed by
letting content be driven strictly by
analysis.”
Brent Wilson , The Postmodern
Paradigm

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• but must be given the opportunity to
accommodate certain information.
• will build cognitive structures or mental
models as they learn.
• will interpret information in the context of
their own experience.
• can make the sum of the curriculum
equal to more than the parts
• But only If given the opportunity by the curriculum
Given the chance with the right curriculum, students:
• can assimilate much new information into their
exiting structures.

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Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques
Use progressive disclosure through hints to encourage
student to think before giving them the answers.
Provide reflection exercises as learning devices.
Have students look back over their efforts to
complete a task and analyze their own performance.
Use Metaphors or analogies to help students
make connections with their existing knowledge.
Use modeling – Show how a process unfolds and
tell how and why it happens that way.
Provide coaching : anticipate questions, define
terms, define concepts.

52. 52
Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques
Use scaffolding – Support learners with parts of
the task and gradually provide less support (fading).
Use guided discovery techniques.
Provide multiple representations of content and
different perspectives.
Provide multiple paths to learning elements to give
students choices of ways to learn.
Use concept maps to show relationships.
Acknowledge complexities – don’t over-
simplify by reducing work to tasks.

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Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques
Use case studies and stories.
Employ Socratic Dialogue by asking leading
questions.
Provide role-playing exercises.
Have students articulate, i.e, think about and give
reasons for their decisions and strategies.
Focus on how work actually gets done rather
than on tasks.
Revisit the same material at different times from
different conceptual perspectives.

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Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques
Make students aware of the knowledge building process.
Give students the opportunity to explore for solutions,
to try out different strategies and hypotheses.
Provide exploration opportunities.
Ask questions that create cognitive dissonance and
that require thought rather than recall.
Provide exercises so that students generate their own
meaning.
Make use of cognitive task analysis.
Use evaluation techniques other than just a
criterion test.