Extraordinary! by Design

As part of my duties as an eIntern for the Virtual Student Federal Service program, I, along with two other eInterns, had to revise an existing lesson plan used by the U.S. Department of State. Whenever I develop or revise a lesson plan I use Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction as a framework. To me, Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction or G9 consist of good instruction codified; that is, they are what good instructors or teachers already do put down into a systematic series of events. Gagne outlined the external events that would stimulate internal cognitive processes and facilitate learning.  Here are Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction

1. Gain Attention– in order for a person to learn something he or she must first attend to the thing to be learned
2. Inform Learners of the  Learning Objectives– this allows the learner to set his or her expectation for learning and direct attention throughout learning
3. Stimulate Recall of Prior Learning– new information is learned more efficiently when it is tied to or related to something that has already been learned
4. Present the Stimulus (or content)– the instructor delivers the content
5. Provide Learning Guidance– the instructor uses instructional strategies such as repetition, mnemonics, and questioning to assist the learner’s acquistion of information or skill development
6. Elicit Performance– the instructor gives the learner the opportunity to practice the learning content
7. Provide Performance Feedback– the instructor provides the learner with feedback on his or her performance, coaching to proficiency; this is like a practice test. Practice without feedback is a waste of time.
8. Assess Performance– this is like a final assessment, used to measure the learners mastery of the content
9. Enhance Retention and Transfer to Other Contexts– the instructor may provide the learner with job aids, mnemonics, handouts, etc. to increase the probability of the learner retaining what has been learned and using what has been learned in other contexts, such as the performance context

I have had success with developing efficient and effective instruction by using Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction, and I use them whenever I have to create micro-level instruction. I recommend you use them too. G9!

Here is a list of books by Robert Gagne.

Cheers,

-WB

During my second time around teaching Introductory Sociology, I was well into my program in Instructional Design and Development, and I wanted to tryout the instructional strategies and assessment techniques I had learned about. Alternative Assessment appealed to me.

Traditional assessment aims to verify learning.  Alternative assessment, on the other hand, provides opportunities for deeper learning rather than simply identification. With alternative assessment, learners have the opportunity to engage in domain specific learning activities which require the use of higher order thinking skills. Examples of alternative assessments include short answer questions, essays, exhibitions, and oral presentations Alternative assessment views the learner as an active participant in the construction of knowledge.

I created the learning objectives and assessment items below for a workshop I conducted on Alternative Assessment. Compare the traditional assessment item to the alternative assessment item. You will note that the traditional assessment item does not require the learner to produce anything; it only requires the learner to identify the correct response; that is a low level of learning that does not promote depth of learning. Alternative assessment items engage higher order thinking skills, such as synthesis and evaluation. For more information on levels of learning see Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

 

 

 

 

 

Need help with creating alternative assessment items for your learners? Reach out to me via our Contact Us page, via email at [email protected], or leave a note below.

Cheers,

-WB

I just finished an outstanding and informative course on visual design in elearing.  The course was by Sally Cox, available on LinkedIn Learning.  Instructional designers analyze learning and performance contexts, learners, and instructional content. The course on visual design brought out the importance of the visual in what we do; we must analyze how content is displayed, not only what is displayed. Not only in elearning but in print based instruction as well, things like the spacing and alignment of characters, colors and shading, font type, and imagery, create cognitive load that may benefit the learner or obstruct learning. As instructional designers we must use principles of visual design to create instruction that makes learning easy and light.

Sally Cox’s course on LinkedIn Learning is Elearning Techniques: Visual Design.

For more information on cognitive load, see  Cognitive Load Theory by Sweller, Ayres, and Kalyuga.

-WB

One of the responsibilities of an instructional designer is to use cognitive science and instructional design principles to inform the creation of efficient and effective learning experiences that are suited to the learner and context. The content created should not impose unnecessary cognitive load (extraneous cognitive load) on the learners, rather content should be created so that relationships, concepts, and ideas are readily obtained by the learner.

I am developing an elearning module for a new product offered by a corporate client. In this project, as well as with paper-based instructional content I’ve created, I have found that a good graphic is worth a thousand words. For my current project, I used a 4 X 5 table to illustrate declarative knowledge that would take several paragraphs of text.

As an instructional designer, it is my job to create content that is displayed in a more efficient, less cognitively-taxing way than strictly text-based delivery; the way I do that is with graphics.