Planning, opening, and bringing to life a new institution of higher education is a challenging undertaking. At UC Merced, it has been a daunting and exhilarating experience for its founding administration, faculty, staff, and students. Campus pioneers had no road map, no playbook to tell them how to plan and build in the twenty-first century a…

A video mock-up is a "design story", described by Patrick Parrish in a recent "TechTrends" article as "imagining the journey of a learner's experience in engaging with a finished design". A design story allows designers to show their design vision to others and to observe features and benefits of the program as a learner would experience it. The…

This research represents the perceptions of two hundred (N = 200) students enrolled in a doctoral-research university's basic instruction program (BIP) regarding their instructional experiences. The purpose of this interpretive case-study conducted in a doctoral-research university's BIP was two-fold: (a) to examine the characteristics of…

Over the last three decades many universities have offered various programmes related to Information Systems. However, the rapid changes in recent years demand constant evaluation and modification of education programmes. Recent challenges include, for instance, the move towards programmes that are more applied and professionally-orientated. The…

Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, Comparative and International Education (CIE) has almost disappeared from the curricula of teacher education colleges in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Yet, CIE is experiencing a revival at postgraduate level. This article will explore the reasons for this dichotomy and the decline of CIE…

Quality assurance in instructional development demands an exhaustive formative evaluation effort and applied testing. Unfortunately, this process is expensive and requires large numbers of user testers with characteristics similar to the intended audience. This article presents a procedure for increasing the efficiency of quality assurance efforts…

This ERIC "FAST Bib" provides annotations of ERIC documents and journal articles that address the question of how to balance two opposing forces operating in today's schools, i.e., the forces of change and complacency, to establish an exemplary language arts curriculum that is a reality and not just a theoretical mirage. The 18…

The purpose of an instructional system is to bring about specific changes in the capabilities of individuals; that is, their potential performance of certain intellectual or motor activities. Achievement and attitudes of learners entering into instruction constitute the input of the system, while their change capabilities are the output. Because…

Based on a survey of 83 instructional developers, this chapter considers whether the instructional developer/client relationship is a consulting relationship and, if so, whether consultants employ a specific consulting model. Four models of consultation are considered--the Product Model, the Prescription Model, the Collaborative/Process Model, and…

Three bases or decision-rules for selecting and organizing content for teacher preparation programs are discussed. In order to be considered as viable content for a teacher preparation program, the concept, principle, or process must be: (1) related to student growth; (2) a necessary curricular component; and (3) logically explained by a theory of…

Cognitive style is a potentially rich, but typically overlooked, source of individualization in computer based instruction (CBI). Using information about learners' cognitive styles in the design, development, and evaluation phases of CBI production can maximize individualization. In the design phase, for example, learners' cognitive styles can be…

This paper details a computer managed program of instruction called Teaching Information Processing System (TIPS) as adapted to an introductory psychology course. TIPS encourages the instructor to formulate objectives for meaningful units of a course--objectives which should imply what changes in student behavior indicate mastery. Then multiple…

What task descriptions and task analyses are, how to write task descriptions, and the relationship of task descriptions to instructional objectives are demonstrated in educational settings. A task description is a systematic method of listing the salient features of a task, and identifies the steps or actions that must be taken to perform a task.…

A collection of activities is presented for teachers to help students explore the schooling process, from the overall organization of the school district to the daily aspects of learning in the classroom. (CB)

Research regarding the characteristics and applications of "errorless" learning methods (stimulus shaping, stimulus fading, and superimposition) indicates that such methods provide a means of designing instruction and materials to facilitate the acquisition of skills, with minimal or no errors, by "difficult to teach" students.…