Instructional Theory

Instructional Theory William Allan Kritsonis, PhD Research indicates that before effective instruction can take place, the instructor must first consider “student readiness.” Research shows that student readiness includes the students’ knowledge, skills and disposition necessary to perform a given task. The instructor must take into account the readiness of each student in order for effective instruction to take place. An evaluation instrument should be designed to measure readiness level of the student so that the instructor can assess the appropriate tasks to assign based on student knowledge. Planning a task leads to the achievement of the learning objective. The number of tasks planned should be based on the difficulty level of the learning objective. In general, greater number of tasks should be planned to achieve a more difficult learning objective. The evaluation of the students’ current knowledge and skills should be a basis for assigning tasks to students and as a measurement for student readiness. When the instructor assigns tasks, the knowledge level and skills level of the student must be sufficient to meet the demands of the tasks. When teaching, the instructor must take into consideration the mastery level of performance.

Learning should be attained for each task so students who learn to perform a task are ready to perform the next task. When defining instructional expectations, research indicates that before effective instruction can take place, the student must know prior to instruction what the learning objective is, what procedures are necessary to perform the tasks required to achieve the learning objective and what the criteria’s are for successful accomplishment of the learning objective. The instructor must clearly define how the student is to achieve the learning objective by defining the procedure that the student is to use in achieving the learning objective. Instructor must clearly define “how” they are to achieve the objective and “what” they must do in order to accomplish the learning objective. Absence of this knowledge may prevent the student from recognizing whether they have successfully completed the given learning objective and whether the appropriate procedure needed to accomplish the learning objective was used. The instructor must provide the student with effective evaluation and remediation. Evaluation can be defined as assessing student task performance for the purpose of certifying, student competence in performing the task being evaluated and diagnosing causes of inadequacy. The instructor must remediate by correction of inadequate

task performance based on the evaluation. Evaluation serves as a diagnostic tool for determining competence task performance and inadequate task performance. When evaluations are conducted, students are given immediate feedback on the competent of task performance and new tasks can be assigned to the student based on the evaluation results. Diagnosis of student inadequacies and student progress should include frequent quizzes, tests, and other forms of performance evaluation. Feedback is necessary to inform students and acknowledge their achievements; encourage their next challenge with expectations of success. Students associate correction and remediation activities with their incorrect responses if remediation is provided sooner rather than later. This is why providing continuity is very necessary in instruction strategies. Studies indicate that academic achievement is improved when instruction is contiguous. Student tasks should be broken down into small segments so that they can be performed as close together as possible. Devices that can be used to promote contiguity include focusing attention on the highlighting relationships and condensing time as well as condensing space. During the instructional process, student tasks performance should follow instruction as soon as possible;

evaluation should occur during or immediately, or very soon after evaluation; remediation should occur immediately following feedback. Two modes of repetition enhance learning. They include repeated presentations of to-be-learned information to students and students’ repetition of assigned tasks. Repetition will enhance learning if the tobe-learned task is repeatedly presented to the student and if the to-belearned task is practiced by students. Repetition must be frequent but must avoid boredom. Too much repetition may interfere with learning of the to-be-learned material. Once students have mastered material, it is advised to move on to new or advanced material or students may become bored. Clarity of communication enhances the academic achievement of students and facilitates the learning objectives they are assigned. Studies indicate that students exposed to clear communications achieve at a rate of one and one-half to three times higher than students not exposed to clear communications. The instructor must provide examples and illustrations of concepts being taught while avoiding irrelevant interjections of subject matter and vagueness. Studies suggest that the instructor should provide transitional terms such as “next”, “the last item is”, and “this concludes”. It is also suggested that the instructor use

simple language and provide time for question and answers. In fact, questions and answers have shown to be especially effective in enhancing achievement. Reducing student/teacher ratio is plays a very important role in the academic achievement of students. As the student-to-teacher ratio increases, academic achievement decreases. Studies have shown that higher ratios mean that teachers spend more time in classroom management as opposed to teaching. Higher ratios also mean that there is more opportunity for off-task behavior. To maximize student achievement it is suggested that teachers use one-on-one tutoring. Group instruction achieves superior results when teamwork is being taught for the purpose of enhancing group achievement. In-group instruction, keeping students-to-teacher rations below 15:1 is ideal as the smaller the group sizes the higher the academic achievement. 1:1 produces the highest achievement. It is necessary to assess and diagnose student performance often and provide remediation in-group instruction. Reminders supposedly enhance higher mental functions such as comprehension and problem solving. This may happen because reminders cue recall of information especially when to-be-learned material consists of a short list or small group of interrelated objects or

concepts. Reminders are also effective when larger number of concepts is to be recalled or when the focus of instruction is English, foreign language vocabulary instruction, science taxonomies, or other more complex learning situations. In order for remainders to be effective in the learning process the instructor is prompted to provide instruction on commonly used effective reminders and how to use them. Provide instruction on how to formulate and use reminders and allow the students ample time to practice using the reminder tactics. Subject matter unifiers also play an important in instructional theory when the student highlights parts or whole relationships in the subject matter. The evidence indicates that the use of unifiers may increase student achievement by as much as five times that for students in learning situations where unifiers were not used. The use of unifiers may be used prior to, during, or after instruction. Students are taught to construct their own unifying scheme either during or after instruction. Unifying schemes employed to highlight relationships in the subject matter included textual summaries, hierarchical tree diagrams, pictorial representations, and subject matter outlines. Providing transfer of learning instruction is defined as the application of prior learning to enable the performance of new tasks. If people did

not transfer what they leonine to solve new problems, learning would be useless. The challenge to education is to facilitate the transfer of learning that is necessary for the achievement of learning objectives. Students need to be taught how to determine the relevance of the knowledge and skills they have learning to the performance of new tasks. Students cannot transfer skills if they do not possess readiness characteristics discussed in earlier in this paper. Students must be able to work as team members to achieve team goals and objectives. Providing teamwork instruction can be facilitated by the instructor so that students are able to problem solve, determine goals and objectives and get along with co-workers. To be productive members of social communities, students must be able to address problems confronting the community and participate in team sports and games. Group teaching does not produce the highest student academic achievement effects; however, it does promote teamwork that is essential to success in civilized societies. The team members learn to share in their successes and failures, rationally resolve conflicts, and appropriately divide the labors. Teamwork ideally is composed of four to five members’ teams. Team-building exercises should be conduced to allow team members to get to know one another and build rapport. Groups

should be allowed time to brainstorm and the instructor should be available to provide assistance and to recognize the teams for the degree of improvement. It is important that the instructor provide ample learning time for the students to correctly perform tasks, contemplate their performance beforehand, and test the behaviors they hypothesize, evaluate the results of their performance, and made refinements. The instructor should provide ample time and plan for learning activities, homework, library projects, and laboratory activities. Allocation of too much time however, may unnecessarily slow the progress of other students. The instructor should monitor allocation of time closely as it is also necessary for student to be kept on task. The more time students spend focused on the assigned tasks without distractions, the more likely they will achieve the learning objectives. Students who do not attend to assigned learning tasks fail to learning and may become dropouts. Students that spend more time focused on the given task achieve greater success in elementary and secondary classrooms. It is important that the instructor assign only tasks that are relevant to achieving the learning objectives for students to stay on task. The instruction must be well planned and organized and sell as demonstrate and guide student to the given task.

Internet Links Learning theory: Objectivism vs constructivism http://media.hku.hk/cmr/edtech/Constructivism.html

Perspectives on instruction http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtech540/Perspectives/Perspectives.html

What is the new paradigm of instructional theory? http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper17/paper17.html

Elaboration theory http://www.gwu.edu/~tip/reigelut.html

Key Terms and Definitions: The definitions in the following section are relevant to Instructional Theory and pertain to instructional contexts and settings. Ability Grouping: The grouping of students according to their ability level for the purpose of instruction Contiguity: The proximity of to-be-associated events in space and time Control Motive: The penchant to improve the control of outcomes Decision-making: Selection a course of action Field-dependent/field independent cognitive style: The tendency to perceive events as either independent of their surrounding field or dependent upon their surrounding field Instruction: A process in which educators evaluate students, assign tasks to student based on the evaluations, and teach students to perform assigned tasks in order to achieve a learning objective Instructional Conditions: Assignment conditions that can affect students’ task performance, such as class size, disruptions, equipment, time allowed for task performance, and safety Instructional Cycle: The cyclical execution of the acts of evaluating; assigning tasks; teaching in order to achieve a learning objective. It may be necessary to repeat the cycle a number of times to achieve a learning objective Instructional Evaluation: The comparison of the performance of an instructional task with criteria of competent performance, and the diagnosis of insufficiencies in task performance Instructional Expectations: The objective students are assigned to achieve and procedures to be followed to achieve the objectives.

Instructional Planning: The process of deriving learning objectives, planning instructional tasks, planning evaluations, planning task assignments and planning teaching. Instructional Strategies: Procedures used to enhance the achievement of learning objectives Instructional Units: Units of instruction consisting of a sequence of evaluation, task assignment, and teaching tactics leading progressively to the achievement of a unit-learning objective. A number of unit objectives are achieved as a means of achieving a policy objective Learning objectives: Terminal tasks students are to learn to perform by means of instruction Learning Time: time allotted to students for performing assigned tasks Policy Objectives: Desired student outcomes to be achieved by educators. Policy objectives are established by policy-makers, such as school boards, for educators to achieve. Predictive ability: The ability to forecast outcomes from antecedent conditions Progressive tasks: A continuum of tasks leading progressively from entry-level tasks appropriate for students with specified readiness characteristics to the achievement of a learning objective Readiness: Student knowledge, skills, and disposition necessary to perform a task Reinforcement: The attempt to increase the probability that a desired assigned task will be performed by providing for the satisfaction of a motive when the desired tasks is performed. Remedial Tasks: Tasks formulated to remediate students’ failure to adequately perform a task Remediation: The correction of inadequate task performance

Reminders: memory joggers used to facilitate and improve recall of tobe-learned information or skills. Repetition: The repeated presentation of to-be-learned material to students and/or student repetition of to-be-learned skills Student/teacher ratio: The proportion of teachers to students the teachers are assigned to teach Students: People being taught Subject matter: The content to be learned by students Subject matter unifiers: Presentations of the parts/whose relationships in subject matter students are assigned to learn to enhance their learning of the subject matter Task planning: The formulation and organizing of progressive tasks and remedial tasks to achieve a learning objective based on student readiness characteristics Tasks: student/subject matter interactions formulated to enable students to achieve learning objectives Teaching: Guiding and facilitating student task performance in order to achieve a learning objective Teaching time: The proportion of learning time spent guiding and facilitating student performance of assigned tasks Teamwork: Cooperation among people to achieve a common objective Time on Task: The amount of time students spend focused on the performance of assigned tasks Transfer of learning: The application of prior learning to enable the performance of new tasks

References Friedman, M.I. & Fisher, S.P. (1998). Handbook on effective instructional strategies: evidence for decision-making. SC: The Institute for Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Education, Inc.