Theoretical foundation
Skinner
Information-processing
Gagne

Characteristics

Criticisms

Theoretical foundation-gagne

Gagne's Principles: Providing Tools for Teachers.

Gagne built on the work of behavioral and information-processing theories into practical instructional strategies that teachers could employ with directed instruction. He is best know for three of his contributions in this area: the events of instruction, the types of learning, and learning hierarchies.

Events of instruction. Gagne used the information-processing model of internal processes to derive a set of guidelines that teachers could follow to arrange optimal "conditions of learning."

Types of learning. Gagne identified several types of learning as behaviors students demonstrate after acquiring knowledge. These differ according to the conditions necessary to foster them. He showed how the Events of Instruction would be carried out slightly differently from one type of learning to another.

Learning hierarchies. To develop "intellectual skills," Gagne believed, requires learning that amounts to a building process. Lower-level skills provide a necessary foundation for higher-level ones. For example, to learn to work long division problems, students first would have to learn all the prerequisite math skills, beginning with number recognition, number facts, simple additions and subtraction, multiplication, and simple division. Therefore, to teach a skill, a teacher must first identify its prerequisite skills and make sure the students possesses them. Gagne called this list of building block skills a learning hierarchy.