Theoretical foundation
Skinner
Information-processing
Gagne

Characteristics

Criticisms

Characteristics of Directed Instructional Model

1. Focus on teaching sequence of skills that begin with lower-level skills and build to high-level skills.

2. Clearly state skill objectives with test items matched to them.

3. Stress more individualized work than group work.

4. Emphasize traditional teaching and assessment methods; lectures, skill worksheets, activities and tests with specific expected responses.

Teaching methods based primarily on behaviorists and information-processing learning theories usually are associated with more traditional, teacher-directed forms of instruction. Robert Gagne asserted that teachers must accomplish at least three tasks to link these learning theories with teaching practices:

1. Ensure students have prerequisite skills. Teachers must make sure that students have all the prerequisite skills they need to learn a new skill. This may involve identifying component skills and the order in which they should be taught. Gagne referred to this group of skills as a learning hierarchy.

2. Supply instructional conditions. Teachers must arrange for appropriate instructional conditions to support the internal processes involved in learning; that is, thy must supply sequences of carefully structured presentations and activities that help students understand (process), remember (encode and store), and transfer (retrieve) information and skills.

3. Determine the type of learning. Teachers must vary these conditions for several different kinds of learning.

Behaviorists and information-processing theories not only have helped establish key concepts such as types of learning and instructional conditions required to bring about each type, but they also laid the groundwork for more efficient methods of creating directed instruction. These methods, known as systematic instructional design or systems approaches, incorporated information from learning theories into step-by-step procedures for preparing instructional materials. Systematic methods came about largely in response to logistical problems in meeting large numbers of individual needs.

Systems approaches contribute to courseware development primarily through the design of self-contained tutorial packages. However, when teachers plan their own directed instruction with technology, thinking about instruction as a system may help them develop guidelines to evaluate their own teaching effectiveness and the usefulness of their computer-based resources. For example, they may pose and answer the following kinds of questions about the components of their instructional systems to evaluate and improve their plans and materials:

1. Instructional goals and objectives. Am I teaching what I intended to teach? Do the goals and objectives of the courseware materials match my own?

2. Instructional analysis (task analysis). Do my students have all the lower-level skills the need to learn successfully what I want to teach them? Does the courseware require skills that my students lack?

3. Test and measures. Do the tests I will use measure what I will teach? Do the items included in the courseware materials match my own measures?

4. Instructional strategies. Are my instructional activities carefully structured to provide appropriate conditions (instructional events) for the kind of leaning involved (supplying examples and explanation as well as gaining attention)? What part do chosen courseware resource play in the activities and why?

5. Evaluating and revising instruction. Have I successfully presented the instruction I envisioned? How could I improve it to make it more effective? Has the courseware successfully played the part I envisioned for it? Do I need better strategies for using it? Do I need better courseware?