Making it Happen Readings

Highlights Outline

  1. The Purpose of Instructional Strategies
  2. Macro and Micro Instructional Strategies
  3. Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Strategies
  4. Macro-strategies

The Purpose of Instructional Strategies

We define the instructional strategy as the methods used to gain and maintain learner attention using presentation and practice activities.

The "C" of ABCD stands for "Condition" or "Instructional Strategy".

This unit covers how to select a good instructional strategy.

Macro and Micro Instructional Strategies

During the instructional design process we work with two types of instructional strategies: the micro strategy (covered in Step 2: Making it Happen) and the macro strategy.

Micro strategies take place at the objectives level of instructional design and make up the "c" of ABCD, which you learned in the previous chapter.

Macro strategies represent a collection of organized and sequenced micro strategies.

Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Strategies

Most instructional strategies are proposed to reduce or enhance cognitive load.

As a designer you try to reduce the complexity of information that is likely to overwhelm a learner, and to reduce or eliminate extraneous information altogether.

Sequential and Non-Sequential Instructional Strategies

A number of information structures faciliate the selection of instructional strategies. These structures are universally recognized and you can think of them as "hardwired" into the brain. In other words, if you use these structures, you are automatically tapping into an organization scheme that the brain instinctively follows.

List

You might simply choose a linear approach in the form of a list. For example, you decide you need to cover four major points making the overall structure look like a list. This macro strategy simply presents four objectives, one after the other in no particular sequence. A more sophisticated list structure follows a presentation/practice sequence. For example, information is presented to the learner. The learner then practices what they have learned.

Simple to Complex

Presenting simple information before complex information is one sequencing strategy that theoretically provides learners with prerequisite knowledge required for understanding new content. As such, effective sequencing strategies reduce cognitive load.

This type of sequencing is essentially a scaffolding strategy. The goal is to help build a memory structure (schema) relevant to the content. Vygotsky’s 1978) zone of proximal development, the argument to place instruction at the intersection of where a student is and where you’d like them to be, can also be thought of as simple to complex, or familiar to unfamiliar sequencing.

Familiar to Unfamiliar

Presenting information in the context of how it is experienced in life, is a familiar to unfamiliar type of sequencing. For example, metaphors and stories fall into this category.

Metaphors, analogies, similes.

Instructional metaphors, analogies, and similes compare new content to familiar to a description of something similar for the sake of making a comparison. For example, an instructional designer is often compared to an engineer (Smith and Ragan).

Both plan their work based upon principles that have been successful in the past – the engineer on the laws of physics, and the designer on basic principles of instruction and learning. Both try to design solutions that are not only functional but also attractive or appealing to the end-user. Both the engineer and the instructional designer have established problem-solving procedures that they use to guide them in making decisions about their designs. (p. 2)Most people are familiar with engineering as a profession, but are not as familiar with the profession of instructional design.

Many people are helped by the comparison. In this respect, intrinsic load (the complexity of instructional design) is reduced by increasing germane (personally meaningful) load.

Stories

The argument for story strategies rests in prior knowledge and experience. Human schemas are organized into story structures that allow the anticipation and interpretation of new information. Children as young as three recognize that stories have beginnings and endings. “[Stories] set up an expectation at the beginning, this is elaborated or complicated in the middle, and is satisfied in the end” (Egan, 1986, p. 24). Learners use that structure to suspend immediate understanding with the knowledge that there will be a middle (a part that explains things) and an end (new understanding).