This article features the Project of Excellence, a program that was designed to engage families in an interactive community-based school literacy program. The authors discuss how they created the Project of Excellence. Although the goal of the Project was to improve the reading skills of young children, the focus of the Project was directed toward…

This paper explores the public awareness that there presently exists a crisis in mathematics education and a "dumbing down" of the curriculum, examines the nature of this crisis and argues that there has been a lowering of cultural, pedagogical and cognitive expectations with respect to most learners. The notion of cognitive development in…

Teaching staff, designing conventional courses in higher education, must make decisions about selecting content and activities to engage students in learning. When the Internet is chosen as the principal delivery vehicle it presents particular challenges for the design of active learning. Further challenges are added when working with a complex,…

Mental models are one way that humans represent knowledge (Markman, 1999). Instructional design (ID) is a conceptual model for developing instruction and typically includes analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (i.e., ADDIE model). ID, however, has been viewed differently by practicing teachers and instructional designers…

Student attitudes towards the use of portfolios to encourage journal reading are investigated in lower division psychology classes. Portfolios can be designed in various ways to meet different educational goals. It is also useful for undergraduates to read original research articles, but difficult to motivate them to do so. The intention of this…

Preparation of instructors is considered to be one of the greatest needs in adult basic education (ABE) and English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) programs. Many ABE and ESL teachers and volunteer instructors receive little or no training, either in subject matter content or in the process of teaching English to adults. The challenge for the adult…

This handbook identifies the instructional models found to be effective for distance education using the Interactive Video Network (IVN) system. Each model is summarized briefly and followed by specific suggestions for the use of the model over the IVN system. For each model, information is given on instructor responsibility prior to, during, and…

The development of computer-based instruction will be greatly facilitated by the use of an effective and efficient design model. Five components of such a model are: (1) the objective; (2) the content; (3) the questions; (4) the boundaries; and (5) the entry skills. A good objective describes either something observable that learners do, the…

This report describes the functions teachers attribute to their lesson plans submitted to supervisors, and their private, unsubmitted, written plans. Sixteen experienced mathematics and English teachers in two secondary schools participated. All teachers in one school were required to submit written plans on a weekly basis; in the other school, no…

A qualitative case study was designed to explore the work experience of six high school English teachers. Teachers were observed over a five month period. No formal, systematic rating scale or observation instruments were used; the observer relied upon his experience as a high school teacher and on specialized training in curriculum theory and…

This discussion of the contributions that cognitive psychology can make to the next generation of instructional design methods begins by comparing behaviorally-based and cognitively-based instructional design systems. Some possible improvements in instructional design are then presented, and it is argued that cognition, or student thought…

This chapter considers the need for professional certification of instructional developers and describes the work of various organizations in this area. The differences between certification, accreditation, and licensure are examined, and the certification efforts of the Division of Instructional Development (DID) of the Association for…

This discussion of the parallel development of instructional development and the professional practices of women instructional developers examines both the three historical phases of the instructional development literature from the 1960s to the 1980s, and the literature of the women's movement for the corresponding period. The first stage is…

This directory of doctoral dissertations in the field of instructional design and technology that were completed during the decade from 1977 through 1986 is designed to provide a complete overview of that doctoral research. It includes listings of the student's name, graduation year, dissertation title (in a rotated keyword-in-context index), and…

This chapter outlines the theory of cost-benefit analysis and discusses its application to determining the cost-benefit of instructional development projects. Three types of applications are discussed: (1) descriptive applications of single projects; (2) predictive studies of proposed projects; and (3) comparative analysis of alternative projects…