This guide is designed to help teachers and administrators in higher education who are responsible for developing courses and other instructional products to become more aware of current research and thinking on systematic instructional development. Taken together, the five modules of the guide present a model for planning instruction and offer a…

This paper argues that Merrill's instructional transaction theory provides a framework that can decrease learners' problems in using computer simulations by specifying transaction shells rather than frames in designing interactive courseware. The three types of data used in a transaction, i.e., an instructional algorithm, are identified as a…

This practicum report describes a curriculum model of student-centered activities that increase knowledge and improve student attitudes during the study of theater history. The target group was comprised of 30 second year drama students in a suburban high school. The model contains five strategies for increasing knowledge and improving attitude:…

At the direction of the Superintendent of Schools of the Charleston County School District (South Carolina), the organizational structure and staff of the District's Division of Curriculum and Instruction was analyzed. The analysis was to focus on the assessment of organizational effectiveness in providing adequate support services, describe…

This book examines the application of total quality management (TQM) principles to training and development. It contains 10 chapters on the following topics: the quality revolution (the nature of and rationale for quality); major barriers to achieving quality (supplier-led approaches, problems with customers, throughput orientation, variable…

With this book as a guide, elementary school teachers can build classroom themes that offer students substantive encounters with knowledge, literature, and language. The book discusses a rationale for theme teaching; an explanation of the different kinds of themes; a variety of ways in which themes can be treated in the classroom; a detailed…

Curriculum alignment is the conscious congruence of three educational elements: curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Alignment is rooted in the belief that instructional plans are established through outcomes-based content goals and the goal of assuring that delivery and assessment are congruent. Platform unity, based on the Principles of…

Centrally concerned with design, educational technology involves making the best possible decisions for action given a particular set of circumstances, with a body of knowledge or instructional theory for guidance. More work is needed to aid educational technologists in the three tasks of building instructional theory, developing techniques for…

This report reviews the background of the Instructional Systems Design (ISD) model (used to develop training for Naval personnel), identifies problems in the ISD process and in its management and implementation, and recommends methods of ISD improvement. The ISD model is described as a process originally developed to remind instructional…

Teaching laboratory science in a high school setting has never been easy. Time is available in short blocks; laboratory facilities are often quite limited. In most American high schools, teachers are responsible not only for preparation of their lesson plans, but also for ordering and preparing any materials to be used in a lab, with little or no…

This final report summarizes work done to formulate and test some cognitively-based principles useful for designing instruction in scientific or engineering fields. These principles stress the coherence and interpretability of the knowledge acquired by students. The principles were specifically applied to: (1) analyze the underlying knowledge and…

A team project was conducted to develop software designed to help undergraduate and graduate students play both the roles of interviewer and interviewee. The project was designed to determine how students with various degrees of experience of employment interviewing felt about the software. Students from three sections of a graduate level course…

Advances in educational technology have brought about changes in the scope of learning facilitated by technology, the roles of teachers and learners, and the sophistication of the processes used in developing instruction which will be communicated by technology. This paper considers these issues from the viewpoint of the learner. The first section…

This paper addresses the numerous ways that computers may be used to enhance the teaching of accounting and business topics. It focuses on the pedagogical use of spreadsheet software to improve the conceptual coverage of accounting principles and practice, increase student understanding by involvement in the solution process, and reduce the amount…

Based on the premise that democracy's values will not survive if they are not purposefully transmitted to successive generations, this booklet proposes that U.S. schools increase efforts to improve citizenship education. The featured issues are: (1) the reasons improvements are needed; (2) what citizens need to know; and (3) the role of humanities…