The instructional designer (ID) plays a critical role in the development and viability of each course taught at a distance, particularly in the incorporation of immediacy behaviors, or communication behaviors that convey approachability and communicate interpersonal warmth and closeness. Faculty development must be fostered to encourage immediacy…

This study, designed to examine instructional clarity, focuses on two questions from the literature: (1) Is it necessary for a lesson to contain keys, links, framing statements, focusing moves, and examples in order for students to achieve and be motivated? and (2) What is the specific purpose of links and focusing moves in instruction? Subjects,…

The National Goals for Education signal a new paradigm. To strengthen this paradigm, a 20-year apprenticeship, starting in the fifth grade, is proposed for all future teachers and professors (in fact, all students, regardless of career goals at that time). Twelve years of peer tutoring experience for virtually all students would begin this…

This paper focuses on reflection and reflective thinking as a means of developing expertise in instructional designers. The need for the reflective instructional designer is discussed, and reflective thinking is examined from several perspectives, i.e., controlled thinking, tacit knowledge, epistemic assumption, abductive reasoning, willingness to…

This study examined the effects of color on information processing strategies of internal and external locus of control learners. Specific objectives were to: (1) examine the instructional effectiveness of two types of visualized instruction in facilitating achievement for students with different learning styles; (2) determine whether an…

Instructional Technology is a field of innovation. As instructional technologists realize that their innovations are not always readily adopted, theories of diffusion and adoption have been incorporated into instructional development models. This paper describes five unexplored areas of research related to the adoption and diffusion of…

The Applied Computer Science Department at Illinois State University is in the process of implementing a reengineered curriculum that utilizes an integrated and spiral approach to subject coverage. The 1996-97 school year was the first year that upper division course prerequisites were based on the new curriculum instead of a mixture of old and…

This paper presents the argument that object oriented analysis (OOA) is rapidly becoming an important systems analysis methodology and that current systems analysis and design courses should present OOA. However, because of the embryonic nature and rapidly changing content of OOA, instructors are faced with special challenges when designing OOA…

This paper describes the design of a synchronous World Wide Web-based distance education environment developed at the Telematics Laboratory of Computer Engineer and Informatics Department (CEID) and Computer Technology Institute (Greece); the environment uses telematics services to conduct lessons over computer networks, simulating a traditional…

This study examined the effectiveness of spaced practice and spaced review when implemented structurally within a computer assisted instruction (CAI) program. The study viewed the comparison of two levels of CAI as instructional treatments. The instructional treatments were developed as structured, which contained spaced practice and spaced…

A total of 54 designs for successful active learning strategies for library instruction in the classroom are presented in this sourcebook. These librarian-authored strategies have been developed and used successfully in instruction. The lesson designs are divided into five sections: Basic Library Instruction; Searching Indexes and Online Catalogs;…

The instructional design process encompasses a set of interdependent phases including analysis of learners, contexts and goals; design of objectives, strategies and assessment tools; production of instructional materials; and evaluation of learner performance and overall instructional design effort. Automated instructional design (AID) tools…

The ways male and female students communicate in computer-mediated distance education courses were examined through a comparison of the communication techniques used by 15 females and 4 males enrolled in a computer conferencing course that required students to share their thoughts regarding a weekly reading assignments and related discussion…

This paper describes the work in progress of a research team at LICEF Research Center, Tele-universite (Canada) in developing an object-oriented model of a computer-enriched high school, with the goal of bringing about a new vision of education through the use of technology. The model facilitates decision-making by offering a global and integrated…

This paper presents and discusses the results of a project in which seven teams of fifth and sixth grade students were involved in designing and implementing interactive multimedia resources in science for younger children, using the Microworlds(TM) Logo programming environment. It was found that students improved significantly in their science…