The Elements of Instruction

A Framework for the Age of Emerging Technologies

Michael H. Molenda, Deepak Prem Subramony

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138721074
• eBook ISBN: 9781351761901
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Elements of Instruction provides a common vocabulary and conceptual schema of teaching and learning that is fully applicable to all forms of instruction in our digital-centric era. This critical examination of educational technology's contemporary semantics and constructs fills a major gap in the logical foundations of instruction, with special attention to the patterns of communication among facilitators, learners, and resources. The book proposes a new framework for organizing research and theory, clear concepts and definitions for its basic elements, and a new typology of teaching-learning arrangements to simplify the selection of optimal conditions for a variety of learning goals. As trends in media, technology, and methodology continue to evolve, these historically contextual, back-to-basics pedagogical tools will be invaluable to all instructional designers and educational researchers.

Status and Directions

1

We stand at the beginning of the third decade of the twenty-first century, gazing in wonder at the bounty promised to education by new and emerging digital technologies. Advocates of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, MOOCs, blockchain technology, and similar developments, envision a transformation of education and training the likes of which mankind has never before experienced.

Indeed, they envision a transformation of human capabilities, coming generations of “digital natives” who think and feel in ways qualitatively different from their ancestors. These visions raise the question that appeared as the title of an article in 2013: “Are 20th-Century Methods of Teaching Applicable in the 21st Century?” (Bassendowski and Petrucka 2013). This book aims to answer that question. What has changed in today’s world of teaching and learning, and what remains the same? Our basic position is that a great deal more is asserted about “what’s new” than is proven, and a great deal that has been proven is being ignored.

Aims of this Book

We intend, first, in this chapter, to critically examine some semantic issues that hinder clear communication about the phenomena we study in the field of pedagogy, particularly terms related to the use of technology in education. Constructs such as media, multimedia, distance education, MOOCs, educational technology, emerging technologies, and social media have frequently been used as independent variables with a wide variety of different phenomena deployed as the actual operational definition of each, leading to results that are largely uninterpretable. Later in this chapter we will attempt to cast some light on the meanings of these constructs.

Second, in Chapter 2 we propose a new framework for organizing research and theory on instruction to fill a major gap in the logical foundations of the field. Third, in Chapter 3 we propose new, clearer concepts and definitions for the basic elements that constitute instruction, which requires a closer look at the theories of learning that underpin instruction. One outcome of that closer look is the suggestion for a new term—instructed learning—to describe the outcome of instructional interventions.

Fourth, in Chapter 4 we introduce a new typology of teaching–learning arrangements, a tool to simplify the process of selecting the optimal conditions for different sorts of learning goals. The typology is based on the patterns of communication among facilitators, learners, and resources; these patterns fall into eight categories, which we call communication configurations. We also introduce a new precising definition for method and provide examples of instructional methods, which are explored in depth in each of the following chapters (5 through 11).

Most of the remainder of the book, Chapters 5 through 11, is devoted principally to a category-by-category examination of the communication configurations introduced in Chapter 4. For each category—Presentation, Demonstration, Whole-Class Discussion, Small-Group Discussion, Tutorial, Repetition, Study, and Expression—we define the construct, list the formats in which each configuration typically occurs, explore the origins of each configuration, discuss “best practices” for gaining the maximum learning benefits from each, and show how each configuration plays a role in different instructional methods. We conclude, in Chapter 12, by recapitulating the major claims made in this book and the points supporting those claims, and by pointing out an issue that may deserve greater attention than is being paid by educators to date.

Talking Past Each Other

We agree with the many scholars who claim that fundamental work remains to be done in the scholarship of pedagogy. Educators, trainers, and instructional designers lack a common vocabulary and a common conceptual schema for the most basic tools they work with. Educational researchers lack operational definitions for many of the treatments they study. This definitional gap is a conceptual problem, but it has both theoretical and practical consequences. Among the most prominent advocates for taking a fresh look at the foundations is M. David “Dave” Merrill, who has contributed many evidence-based ideas for designing instruction to meet his standard of “e³,” i.e., to be effective, efficient, and engaging (Merrill 2013). To lay a foundation for his design principles, Merrill proposes a systematic approach, beginning with rigorous definitions of basic terms, such as instructional event, instructional interaction, content element, and component skill (2013, 48–53).

Another contemporary theorist who deals with these basic issues is Theodore “Ted” Frick, whose perspective is rooted in the philosophical framework of semiotics, related to general systems theory. He proposes that the study of educational processes be labeled as educology, and that this field of organized knowledge should be based on a glossary of standard terms, including educational system, intentional system, learning, teacher, student, content, context, and system environment (Frick, 2019).

We agree with Merrill, Frick, and other recent critics, especially such as Reigeluth and Carr-Chellman (2009), who point out the shortcomings in the conceptual framework and terminology in the field of pedagogy; further, we agree with their basic approach, which is to attempt to be as systematic as possible in choosing and using our “terms of art.” Two of our major purposes in this book are to propose our own conceptual framework (see Chapter 2) and our own set of basic terms (see Chapter 3) for the field of instruction. In those discussions, we point out where we agree and disagree with Merrill’s and Frick’s choices of labels and definitions. We extend this argument in Chapter 4, where we propose a new way of looking at teaching–learning arrangements—communication configurations. We hope that these proposals may help lay a new foundation for better professional communication.

A Note about Creating Constructs and Definitions

Throughout this book, we attempt to be transparent about designating new or revised constructs and also about providing definitions for both new and familiar constructs. In this we are guided by the advice of Dusek (2006) regarding the traits of different types of definitions. He differentiates among three common types of definitions—in addition to the dictionary definition—encountered in academic works: reportative, stipulative, and precising. Reportative definitions simply report how words are used in everyday conversation. Lexical definitions—those that appear in dictionaries—are usually claimed to be reportative. The dictionary’s lexicographers typically claim that they are offering definitions that are descriptive of how words are generally used, not prescriptive—judging between “correct” and “incorrect” usage. However, dictionaries necessarily play a somewhat normative role, since they do draw boundaries around meanings. Reportative definitions are adequate for day-to-day human communications; we want our words to signify the same thing to our listeners as they do to us, otherwise conversation becomes unintelligible. On the other hand, reportative definitions are often too fuzzy to serve the purpose of scholarly discussion.

Stipulative definitions are concocted by scholars to conclusively establish the meanings of key terms for purposes of logical discussion; their critical attributes and boundaries are stipulated by the writer. Stipulative definitions are imperative for discourse in fields such as logic and mathematics. In general, they facilitate discourse as long as all parties adhere to the artificially concocted definition. However, as Dusek (2006, 28) points out, there is always the danger that one or more parties will unconsciously start using a defined term according to its lexical, rather than its stipulated, meaning. At that point, clear communication breaks down.

Precising definitions begin with the lexical meaning and then add additional criteria that narrow down the boundaries of what is included and what is excluded. Precising definitions are common in legal discourse; for example, how many convictions, of what sort, make a person a “habitual offender?” Or who qualifies as a “parent?” What we intend to offer in this chapter and subsequent chapters are precising definitions. We strive to stay within the commonly understood, or reportative, meanings, while specifying critical attributes and setting boundaries that reduce the likelihood of misunderstanding. For example, in common usage, the term game is often used to describe activities that may more accurately be labeled as puzzles, contests, simulations, or simulation games. Each of these has quite different instructional implications, so important distinctions are missed when all are aggregated under one label.

Problematic Constructs

Media

Until the twentieth century, the term medium (plural media) was used primarily in the sense of an environment, a substance surrounding an object, separating it from outside forces—such as using agar as a growth medium in a petri dish (Oxford English Dictionary, 2^nd edition 1989). In the early decades of the twentieth century, with the advent of industrial-level newspaper and book printing and distribution—and later, radio broadcasting—the concept of mass media was born. These “emerging technologies” seemed to create enveloping environments into which readers and listeners could immerse themselves.

“Magical” Media

When television joined radio in the mid-twentieth century, these technologies allowed the broad dissemination of entertainment and information at a speed and a cost that other mass media—such as newspapers, magazines, books, theater, and cinema—could not compete with. Electrical signals flying at nearly the speed of light could produce sounds and pictures out of thin air. It seemed magical. And the people who appeared on radio and television basked in the glow of this magical force; they took on credibility and enjoyed prestige beyond that of other entertainers and journalists. Pioneers in communication research, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton, termed it the “status conferral function” of the mass media (Lazarsfeld and Merton 1948, 235–236).

It was entirely foreseeable that educators would seek to capitalize on these new technologies for their own purposes, entranced as they were by the halo of excitement surrounding broadcast media and other revolutionary innovations of the day. For example, in the late 1920s, early in the era of commercial air travel, a teacher and a class of elementary students flew aboard a converted commercial aircraft for “aerial geography” lessons (Cuban 1986, 8). Similarly, in 1984 NASA launched its Teacher in Space Project, aimed at carrying teachers into space to beam lessons from the Space Shuttle back to Earth and later to return to their classrooms to share the experience with students. It is unclear how the pedagogical impact of such treatments was expected to be enhanced by their being conducted inside an airplane or beamed from outer space. The “active ingredient” of such treatments appears to be the mystique—the status conferral—of being associated with a popular and very modern high-tech innovation.

More realistically, educators started “schools of the air” to broadcast lessons to elementary, secondary, and college students in their regular classrooms. The original rationale was to standardize the presentation of material, employing talented presenters and writers and skillful audiovisual production staffs to provide lessons of higher quality than everyday classroom teachers could prepare. In the 1950s, with a booming postwar population, the motivation was more economic: Television could fill the gap in supply of qualified teachers for all the new schools being built. The unspoken rationale was that the “magic” of broadcasting gave televised lessons an impact so much greater than just the words and images being transmitted, that they could replace some of the most important functions of live teachers.

Many of these efforts later foundered as tele-educators struggled with the mundane concerns, such as providing content that fit the curricula of different school districts at the same time and furnishing the classroom management and instructional support that only a live, trained facilitator could provide. In the 1960s, in the era of school desegregation in the United States...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Preface
• 1 Status and Directions
• 2 A Framework for the Instructed Learning Process
• 3 Learning, Instruction, and the Elements of Instruction
• 4 Communication Configurations and Methods
• 5 Presentation
• 6 Demonstration
• 7 Discussion
• 8 Tutorial
• 9 Repetition
• 10 Study
• 11 Expression
• 12 Summary and Conclusions
• Epilogue
• Glossary
• Index