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Rationale

Instructional Theory is a discipline that focuses on how to structure material for promoting the education of humans, particularly youth. Originating in the United States in the late 1970s, instructional theory is typically divided into two categories: the cognitive and behaviorist schools of thought. Instructional theory was spawned off the 1956 work of Benjamin Bloom, a University of Chicago professor, and the results of his Taxonomy of Education Objectives — one of the first modern codifications of the learning process. One of the first instructional theorists was Robert M. Gagne, who in 1965 published Conditions of Learning for the Florida State University's Department of Educational Research.

Renowned psychologist B. F. Skinner's theories of behavior were highly influential on instructional theorists because their hypotheses can be tested fairly easily with the scientific process. It is more difficult to demonstrate cognitive learning results. Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (ISBN 0-8264-1276-9) — first published in English in 1968 — had a broad influence over a generation of American educators with his critique of various "banking" models of education and analysis of the teacher-student relationship.

In the context of e-learning, a major discussion in instructional theory is the potential of learning objects to structure and deliver content. A stand-alone educational animation is an example of a learning object that can be re-used as the basis for different learning experiences. There are currently many groups trying to set standards for the development and implementation of learning objects. At the forefront of the standards groups is the Department of Defense's Advanced Distributed Learning initiative with its SCORM standards. SCORM stands for Shareable Content Object Reference Model.

• Learning theory
• Instructional Design
• Instructional Technology
• Educational Technology
• Teaching Method
• Training Within Industry was developed during WWII and is still in use around the world

Higher Education is education provided by universities, vocational universities (community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and technical colleges, etc.) and other collegial institutions that award academic degrees, such as career colleges.

The University of Cambridge is an institute of higher learning.

• Overview
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  • In sciences
  • In arts and social sciences
  • In applied sciences
  • In performing arts
  • In plastic or visual arts
  • Vocational
• As employers
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  • Asia
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• See also
  • Adult education
  • Community college
  • Further education
  • Foundation degree
  • Lifelong learning
  • Education by country
    • Education in China
      • Education in the People's Republic of China(mainland China)
      • Education in Hong Kong
      • Education in Macau
      • Education in the United Kingdom
        • Education in England
        • Education in Northern Ireland
        • Education in Scotland
        • Education in Wales
    • Education in Egypt
    • Education in India
    • Education in Malaysia
    • Education in Pakistan
  • List of academic disciplines
  • List of education topics
  • Glossary of education-related terms
• References
• External links
  • Approaches to Learning in Higher Education
  • Philosophy of Liberal Education
  • Spirituality in Higher Education
  • VidyaSoochika - Higher Education Opportunities
  • Higher Education Resource Hub
  • Encyclopedia of Higher Education in the United States
  • How Minority Students Finance Their Higher Education
  • Top Ten Universities of US and UK
  • Ensuring Quality and Productivity in Higher Education
  • Writings on Higher Education Practice from the National University of Singapore
  • Reform Initiatives in Higher Education
  • Budgeting for Higher Education at the State Level: Enigma, Paradox, and Ritual
  • Blue Ribbon Commissions and Higher Education
  • Part Time MBA - Balancing Life, Work and School - Article
  • American Association of State Colleges and Universities
  • American Council on Education
  • Higher Education Research Institute
  • Association for the Study of Higher Education
  • Information about Erasmus/Internship in Europe
  • European universities fear "Americanization"
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Career Development

Tutorials

• Career Directions

Readings

Career Management is defined by Ball (1997) as:

1. Making career choices and decisions the traditional focus of careers interventions. The changed nature of work means that individuals may now have to revisit this process more frequently than in the past.
2. Managing the organisational career concerns the career management tasks of individuals within the workplace, such as decision-making, life-stage transitions, dealing with stress etc.
3. Managing 'boundaryless' careers refers to skills needed by workers whose employment is beyond the boundaries of a single organisation, a workstyle common among, for example, artists and designers.
4. Taking control of one's personal development as employers take less responsibility, employees need to take control of their own development in order to maintain and enhance their employability.

Now that the job-for-life covenant between employer and employee has been superseded by an insecure and uncertain job market, career management has become a necessary survival skill rather than being an activity pursued by Ivy League alumni or people born with a silver spoon in the mouth. Job security is now based on knowledge, skills and added-value rather than length of service or loyalty to an employer. Career management is nothing more than a small investment of time, money and energy to protect the major source of revenue - one's job.

Career Planning Quotes External links Career X Roads Career management deficiency RecruitIreland.com Overview on career management StudentIndia.com Career options analysis jobpodge.com a searchable collection of real life job experiences and career advice See also Career Job interview Résumé

Principles of Instruction and Learning

• Curriculum (what to teach and how to organize it),
• Instruction (how to teach the content),
• Evaluation (assessing the extent of learning),
• Management (in and out of the classroom), and
• Self-Improvement (becoming a better teacher).

Tutorials

• Principles of Learning and Teaching
• Overview of Classroom Processes
  • Carroll's Model

Readings

Learning, as the noun, is the body of knowledge and wisdom (that which one learns); as the verb, it is the process of gaining understanding that leads to the modification of attitudes and behaviors through the acquisition of knowledge, skills and values, through study and experience. Learning induces a persistent, measurable, and specified behavioral change in the learner to formulate a new mental construct or revise a prior mental construct. The learning process leads to long-term changes in behavior potential. Behavior potential describes an individual’s possible behavior in a given situation to achieve a goal. But potential is not enough; if individual learning is not periodically reinforced, it becomes shallower and shallower, and eventually will be lost in that individual.

Education can be defined as the conscious attempt to promote learning in others (but see Education for other definitions.) Traditionally, analysis of this attempt has centered around direct teaching on the part of teachers. In what constitutes a paradigm shift, however, people now note that learning can be promoted in ways that go beyond direct instruction by a teacher - education now centers around creating a viable, productive learning environment, regardless of how teacher-centric that environment might be.

When the term education is combined with entertainment, the term edutainment is coined. Edutainment also called "e-learning" are new methods and practices that enabled learning in faster, more efficient and more entertaining ways. The idea is usually to combine games with learning, using software or interactive courses. There are also blogs on edutainment that keep up with the latest news and updates on software, videos, and lessons that use edutainment as a basis for teaching in a more efficient and faster way. E-learning is more specifically related to "electronic learning." This may or may not be edutainment. Many distance education programs use electronic teaching methodologies (courseware) to facilitate the educational process, these programs will often talk about doing "e-learning."

• Learning - Neuroscience
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  • Intro
  • Non-Formal learning methods
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  • Learning by example
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  • Learning 2.0
• Learning which alternative methods exist
• Learning which shortcuts exist to solve specific problems
• Theories on Learning
  • Experiential learning Kolb's research found that people learn in four ways with the likelihood of developing one mode of learning more than another. In Kolb's "experiential learning cycle" model, learning is through:
    • concrete experience
    • observation and reflection
    • abstract conceptualisation
    • active experimentation
• Other dimensions of learning
• See also

• External links
  • Study Guides and Strategies over 120 topics including learning, studying, classroom participation, learning with others, project management, reading, writing, test preparation and taking, research, maths, science, and webtruth in thirty languages* Explorations in Learning & Instruction: The Theory Into Practice Database
  • Natural Learning, Articles by leading writers
  • General study tips, Tips on how to better learn and prepare for exams
  • Life Learning International magazine about self-directed learning, unschooling and informal learning
  • Nurturing Children's Natural Love of Learning - Article by Jan Hunt
  • Learning Inquiry: an academic journal centered on learning
  • Articles about Natural Learning from Natural Life magazine
  • Learning Through World Travel & Cultures -- The travel and learning adventures of the Escampette family as they use the world as a classroom, exploring cultures and visiting humanitarian projects.
  • How To Learn - a spiritual perspective
  • Learning With Laptop Computers - Articles on educators using technology in the classroom
  • Interview with James Zull, Ph.D.

In psychology and education, Learning Theories are attempts to describe how people learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning. There are basically three main perspectives in learning theories, Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism.

Goals of learning are thought to be a key factor influencing the level of a student's intrinsic motivation.

Main axes of Goal Theory

• Mastery/Performance Ames (1992). Mastery orientation is described as a student's wish to become proficient in a topic to the best of their ability. The student's sense of satisfaction with the work is not influenced by external performance indicators such as grades. Mastery orientation is associated with deeper engagement with the task and greater perseverance in the face of setbacks.Mastery orientation is thought to increase a student's intrinsic motivation.

• Performance orientation is described as a student's wish to achieve highly on external indicators of success, such as grades. The student's sense of satisfaction is highly influenced by their grades, and so it is associated with discouragement in the face of low marks. Performance orientation is also associated with higher states of anxiety. In addition, the desire for high marks increases the temptation to cheat or to engage in shallow rote-learning instead of deep understanding.

Performance orientation is thought to increase a student's intrinsic motivation if they perform well, but to decrease motivation when they perform badly.

• Task/ego involvement Nicholls (1990). A student is described as task-involved when they are interested in the task for its own qualities. This is associated with higher intrinsic motivation. Task-involved students are less threatened by failure because their own ego is not tied up in the success of the task.

A student who is ego-involved will be seeking to perform the task to boost their own ego, for the praise that completing the task might attract, or because completing the task confirms their own self-concept (eg. clever, strong, funny etc...) Ego-involved students can become very anxious or discouraged in the face of failure, because such failure challenges their self-concept.

• Approach/avoidance goals Elliot (1997). Not all goals are directed towards approaching a desirable outcome (good grades). Goals can also be directed towards avoiding an undesirable outcome (being grounded for failure).

It is thought that approach goals contribute positively to intrinsic motivation whereas avoidance goals do not.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism is an approach to Psychology which purports that learning is the result of Operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a process both named and investigated by B. F. Skinner. The word ‘operant’ refers to the way in which behavior ‘operates on the environment’. Briefly, a behavior may result either in reinforcement, which increases the likelihood of that behavior occurring again; or punishment,which decreases the likelihood of the same behavior recurring in the future. The issues surrounding are relatively complex. For example, a reinforcer or a punisher is defined within behaviorism by its effect on behavior. Therefore a punisher is not considered to be punishment if it does not result in the reduction of a particular behavior. As a result, behaviorists are particularly interested in measurable changes in behavior, which is itself a basic premise of the scientific method.

Cognitivism

The word Cognitivism is used in several ways:

• In ethics, cognitivism is the philosophical view that ethical sentences express propositions, and hence are capable of being true or false. See Cognitivism (ethics). More generally, cognitivism with respect to any area of discourse is the position that sentences used in that discourse are cognitive, that is, are meaningful and capable of being true or false.
• In aesthetics, cognitivism is the view that a work of art is valuable if it contributes to knowledge.
• In psychology, cognitivism is the approach to understanding the mind which argues that mental function can be understood as the 'internal' rule-bound manipulation of symbols. See Cognitivism (psychology).
• In psychology, anecdotal cognitivism is a methodology for interpreting animal behavior in terms of mental states, comparable to the mental states of humans. For example, the methodology attempts to determine the cognitive capacity of animals through observation without the necessity that this observation be regulated or controlled as in an experiment; however, behavior in an experiment can be interpreted using the methodology.

Cognitivism, also known as Cognitive Information Processing (CIP). Cognitivism became the dominant force in psychology in the late-20th century, replacing behaviorism as the most popular paradigm for understanding mental function. Cognitive psychology is not a wholesale refutation of behaviorism, but rather an expansion that accepts that mental states are appropriate to analyze and subject to examination. This was due to the increasing criticism towards the end of the 1950s of behaviorist models. For example, Noam Chomsky argued that language could not be acquired purely through conditioning, and must be at least partly explained by the existence of internal mental states, and that these states can be described and analyzed.

See also

• Social Cognitivism
• Social Learning Theory

Cognition - the study of the human mind (not brain).

The term cognition (Latin: cognoscere, "to know") is used in several loosely related ways to refer to a faculty for the human-like processing of information, applying knowledge and changing preferences. Cognition/(cognitive processes) can be natural and artificial, conscious and not conscious; therefore, they are analyzed from different perspectives and in different contexts, in anesthesia, neurology, psychology, philosophy, systemics and computer science. The concept of cognition is closely related to such abstract concepts as mind, reasoning, perception, intelligence, learning, and many others that describe numerous capabilities of human mind and expected properties of artificial or synthetic intelligence. Cognition is an abstract property of advanced living organisms; therefore, it is studied as a direct property of a brain or of an abstract mind on subsymbolic and symbolic levels.

In psychology and in artificial intelligence, it is used to refer to the mental functions, mental processes and states of intelligent entities (humans, human organizations, highly autonomous robots), with a particular focus toward the study of such mental processes as comprehension, inferencing, decision-making, planning and learning (see also cognitive science and cognitivism). Recently, advanced cognitive researchers have been especially focused on the capacities of abstraction, generalization, concretization/specialization and meta-reasoning which descriptions involve such concepts as beliefs, knowledge, desires, preferences and intentions of intelligent individuals/objects/agents/systems.

Constructivism is a set of assumptions about the nature of human learning that guide constructivist learning theories and teaching methods of education. Constructivism values developmentally appropriate teacher-supported learning that is initiated and directed by the student.

Larger Map

• History
• Confusion between constructivist and maturationist views
• Constructivist theory
  • Constructivist learning intervention
    • The nature of the learner
      • The learner as a unique individual
      • The importance of the background and culture of the learner
      • The responsibility for learning
      • The motivation for learning
    • The role of the instructor
      • Instructors as facilitators
    • The nature of the learning process
      • Learning is an active, social process
      • The dynamic interaction between task, instructor and learner
    • Collaboration between learners
      • The importance of context
      • Assessment
    • The selection, scope and sequencing of the subject matter
      • Knowledge should be discovered as an integrated whole
      • Engaging and challenging the learner
      • The structuredness of the learning process
      • Final remarks
• Pedagogies based on constructivism
• Criticism of Educational Constructivism
• Social constructivism
• Computer programming and science
• References
• See also
  • Constructivist epistemology
  • Learning theory
    • Learning Theories - The Theory Into Practice Database
  • Autodidactism
  • Learning styles
  • Educational psychology
  • Vocational education
• External links
  • A journey into Constructivism by Martin Dougiamas, 1998-11.
  • Cognitively Guided Instruction reviewed on the Promising Practices Network