From Instruction and technology: Designs for everyday learning Mehlenbacher, ©2008 The six tables presented here provide a much-abbreviated summary of research contained in Mehlenbacher (in preparation) “Instruction and technology: Designs for everyday learning.” Following a summary of 12 models of formal instructional situations (Mehlenbacher, 2008), we saw that several features or dimensions of instructional situations received considerable, repeated consideration. Elsewhere we have argued that it is useful to generalize to all (or everyday) instructional situations before immediately turning to online learning environments (Mehlenbacher, 2002). The models reviewed emphasized learners, instructors, instructional strategies, content, group interaction, learning outcomes, and institutional context. Our model collapses instructors with instructional strategies, views content as being shared by learners, instructors, and social dynamics, and sets learning outcomes and institutional contexts outside our focus of attention. See Table 1 for an elaboration of the five dimensions of everyday instructional situations. In brief, all instructional situations can be described as involving learners (with particular biological, cognitive, affective, socioeconomic attributes), tasks (read this poem, solve this mathematical problem, measure this flame), social dynamics (one-way explanation, discussion, groupwork), instructional activities (expectations, methods, objectives), environments (seminar rooms, classrooms) and artifacts (whiteboards, chairs, pencils) for learning. Table 2 focuses on learners, generally, organizing them from individual physical and cognitive to social and communal attributes, although factors that comprise each learner attribute (e.g., abilities as cognitive and physical) are sorted alphabetically to avoid privileging particular factors. Thus, although geographical factors may be a more powerful an indicator of learner behavior than family issues, family precedes geographic alphabetically. Table 3 is an example of how research-based recommendations for practice in online instruction might be generated from a quick review of the literatures related to instruction and learning with technology. The design principles have been organized around the five dimensions of everyday instructional situations. Table 4 draws on the considerable research devoted to the usability of performance systems and to Web-based instruction design (Bevan, 1998; Nielsen, 1994, 1997; Mehlenbacher, 2003; Mehlenbacher, Miller, Covington, & Larsen, 2000; Zaharias, 2004). From this considerable research base, we can begin to outline a set of heuristics for the designers and evaluators of online learning environments. Our framework for everyday instructional situations can ultimately be applied to our working understandings of the literatures on instruction and learning with technology. Table 5 presents a matrix for organizing future research studies on the relationship between instruction, learning, and technology. Finally, Table 6 presents a summary of the articles published in one peer-reviewed journal, the American Journal of Distance Education, between 2002 and 2006. The articles are tagged according to the five dimensions of instructional situations: LB for Learner Background and Knowledge, TA for Learner Tasks and Activities, SD for Social Dynamics, IA for Instructor Activities, and EA for Learning Environment and Artifacts. |