Instructional Tech - Kevin

  Cognitive and Constructivist Perspectives SO MUCH INFORMATION this week. Duffy and Raymer (2010) said, “The intellectual skills called for in our life cannot be filled by traditional instructional approaches” (p12). This may well be true into perpetuity as our knowledge base keeps expanding, and as technology grows and develops, what has been traditional needs to be revamped and reimagined, and what is new today will eventually need the same treatment. I admit that even though at heart I still have an affinity for behaviorism, there is so much good in cognitive and constructivist ideas that I can’t help but divide some of my allegiance. I really appreciated this week that there was so much useful, practical content rather than theoretical ideas. Maybe because this week was all about doing. “Instruction is not so much done to learners, rather it engages learners in a process of inquiry and meaningful activity” (Wilson, 2018, p61).   I enjoyed the opportunity to listen...

  Theories of Learning: Behaviorism “As a field of practice, we need to recognize that no theoretical framework will meet all our needs, and pragmatically apply the framework to each problem which seems to work best. Behaviorism is dead; long live behaviorism” (Foshay, 2001, p2). I will be the first to admit that all these grand learning theories confuse me – especially as one tries to nail them down to explicit and exclusive learning practices. This is why I felt a little bit of a rush when Dr. Richard Meyer in this week’s class interview mentioned that he didn’t subscribe to the theories, per se, but to getting the deed done using a symphony of theirs and practices (Bonk, 2021). That being said, I still find that I tend towards behaviorist roots. I appreciate the fact that it is hard to know motivation of learners. It is far easier to evaluate behavioral results. As a director of continuing education for my research journal, I often deal with learning objectives (LO) for cl...

  Instructional Development Process “Perhaps the best guide to planning instructional events is the students themselves” (Driscoll, 2000, p370). It is hard to say it better than that. This week’s reading was a fascinating look at the process of design. I must admit I learned quite a lot from the readings and how they defined the terms that were used. More than the terms and the processes, I appreciated how they, especially Molenda (Molenda, Pershing, & Reigeluth; 1996; p268), indicated that although some processes could be used as step-by-step instructions, they generally were better suited as a general guide. With the idea that design, especially good design, contained a “good deal of craft and art” (p268). One of the things that jumped out at me were the tables in Driscoll’s article on cognitive outcomes, affective outcomes, and psychomotor outcomes. I had seen a breakdown of Gagne’s learning outcomes, but had never seen the breakdown of each individual domain. It was i...

  Instructional Systems Design I found the readings this week to be quite interesting. I work for an international dental research journal. I find that this colors my perception of models and lenses. I am mostly a positivist and a behaviorist, and I appreciate, trust, and understand quantitative research far better than qualitative. That being said, my masters program in adult education is making some inroads into that thinking, and I can at least see where other lenses and theories might be acceptable. Because of that, I had a little bit of a rollercoaster ride this week trying to keep up with the transition from a behaviorist based Instructional design to more of a design-based approach. I did appreciate that Branch (Branch, 2018, p8) started out defining terms and clarified that, “Systemic stresses the application of creative problem-solving methods.”, that the word systemic indicated that, “all components within [a] system respond when a single component is stimulated.” (Br...