An instructional theory is "a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop." It provides insights about what is likely to happen and why with respect to different kinds of teaching and learning activities while helping indicate approaches for their evaluation. Instructional designers focus on how to best structure material and instructional behavior to facilitate learning.
Instructional design (ID), also known as instructional systems design (ISD), is the practice of systematically designing, developing and delivering instructional products and experiences, both digital and physical, in a consistent and reliable fashion towards an efficient, effective, appealing, engaging and inspiring acquisition of knowledge. The process consists broadly of determining the state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some "intervention" to assist in the transition. The outcome of this instruction may be directly observable and scientifically measured or completely hidden and assumed. There are many instructional design models but many are based on the ADDIE model with the five phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.
Instructional scaffolding is the support given to a student by an instructor throughout the learning process. This support is specifically tailored to each student; this instructional approach allows students to experience student-centered learning, which tends to facilitate more efficient learning than teacher-centered learning. This learning process promotes a deeper level of learning than many other common teaching strategies.
Student-centered learning, also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student. In original usage, student-centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence by putting responsibility for the learning path in the hands of students by imparting them with skills and basis on how to learn a specific subject and schemata required to measure up to the specific performance requirement. Student-centered instruction focuses on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning and independent problem-solving. Student-centered learning theory and practice are based on the constructivist learning theory that emphasizes the learner's critical role in constructing meaning from new information and prior experience.
Constructivism is a philosophical viewpoint about the nature of knowledge. Therefore, it represents an epistemological stance.
Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes. There is no universal usage of open file formats in OER.
Educational technology is "the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources".
Audiovisual education or multimedia-based education (MBE) is instruction and comes under Electrical department of the organisation, where particular attention is paid to the audio and visual presentation of the material with the goal of improving comprehension and retention.
This glossary of education-related terms is based on how they commonly are used in Wikipedia articles. This page contains terms starting with T – Z. Select a letter from the table of contents to find terms on other pages.
Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a pedagogical approach where in learning takes place via social interaction using a computer or through the Internet. This kind of learning is characterized by the sharing and construction of knowledge among participants using technology as their primary means of communication or as a common resource. CSCL can be implemented in online and classroom learning environments and can take place synchronously or asynchronously.
Discovery learning is a technique of inquiry-based learning and is considered a constructivist based approach to education. It is also referred to as problem-based learning, experiential learning and 21st century learning. It is supported by the work of learning theorists and psychologists Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Seymour Papert. Although this form of instruction has great popularity, there is some debate in the literature concerning its efficacy.
Personalized learning, individualized instruction, personal learning environment and direct instruction all refer to efforts to tailor education to meet the different needs of students.
E-learning theory describes the cognitive science principles of effective multimedia learning using electronic educational technology.
Second-language acquisition classroom research is an area of research in second-language acquisition concerned with how people learn languages in educational settings. There is a significant overlap between classroom research and language education. Classroom research is empirical, basing its findings on data and statistics wherever possible. It is also more concerned with what the learners do in the classroom than with what the teacher does. Where language teaching methods may only concentrate on the activities the teacher plans for the class, classroom research concentrates on the effect the things the teacher does has on the students.
Open educational practices (OEP) is the use of Open educational Resources for teaching and learning in order to innovate the learning process. They are represented in teaching techniques that draw upon open technologies and high-quality open educational resources (OER) in order to facilitate collaborative and flexible learning. They may involve students participating in online, peer production communities within activities intended to support learning or more broadly, any context where access to educational opportunity through freely available online content and services is the norm. Such activities may include, the creation, use and repurposing of open educational resources and their adaptation to the contextual setting. OEP can also include the open sharing of teaching practices and aim "to raise the quality of education and training and innovate educational practices on an institutional, professional and individual level". The OEP community includes policy makers, managers/ administrators of organisations, educational professionals and learners. OEP are also viewed as the next phase in OER development that continues to transform 21st century learning and learners.
OER Commons is a freely accessible online library that allows teachers and others to search and discover open educational resources (OER) and other freely available instructional materials.
The OER4Schools programme is a teacher professional development programme utilizing information and communication technologies (ICT), focussing on sub-Saharan Africa. It was initiated at the Centre for Commonwealth Education, based at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Aspects of the OER4Schools project are developed in conjunction with OER Africa.
Michael J. Hannafin is a Professor of Instructional Technology and the Director of Learning and Performance Support Laboratory at the University of Georgia. He obtained a Ph.D. in Educational Technology from the Arizona State University. Along with Kyle Peck, he developed the field of Computer Aided Instruction as distinguished from Computer Based Instruction. He received the AERA SIG- IT Best Paper Award in 2007.
Phenomenon-based learning is a multidisciplinary, constructivist form of learning or pedagogy where students study a topic or concept in a holistic approach instead of in a subject-based approach. PhBL includes both topical learning, where the phenomenon studied is a specific topic, event, or fact, and thematic learning, where the phenomenon studied is a concept or idea. PhBL emerged as a response to the idea that traditional, subject-based learning is outdated and removed from the real-world and does not offer the optimum approach to development of 21st century skills. It has been used in a wide variety of higher educational institutions and more recently in grade schools.
