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,…

Improving professional learning for educators is a crucial step in transforming schools and improving academic achievement. To meet federal requirements and public expectations for school and student performance, the nation needs to bolster teacher skills and knowledge to ensure that every teacher is able to teach increasingly diverse learners,…

The premise is advanced that a major weakness of the everyday generic instructional systems design model stems from a too modest traditional conception of the purpose and potential of formative evaluation. In the typical ISD (instructional systems design) model formative evaluation is shown not at all or as a single, product evaluation step. Yet…

A three-faceted investigation was conducted to critically analyze Witkin's conceptualization of cognitive style gleaned from his field dependence/field independence continuum, to identify cognitive style components within the instructional development literature, and to construct a paradigm of the intersections and commonalities between the…

This description of the marketing process as a practical way to manage the function of instruction development emphasizes the importance of the identification and evaluation of customer needs before developing objectives. To assist the instructional development agency in focusing on this aspect of planning, a check list of possible marketing…

Check lists are provided for the person(s) responsible for the following in an instructional design project: overall project management, operations, market research/development (funding), prototype development, product conceptualization, print development, (nonprint) media development, apparatus development, evaluation, and…

Presents guidelines for giving feedback to improve the instructional effectiveness of other people's products and for getting feedback; and considers the subjective human element in both formal expert review, and more intimate colleague feedback. (VT)

Discusses the main categories of instructional software, including drill/practice, tutorials, simulation/problem solving, games, and management, along with factors involved in their design. (Author/MBR)

Discusses the need to develop an appropriate pedagogy for cooperative education to integrate the educational outcomes from the work and classroom experience. Suggests that the model should structure, guide, and provide for the systematic evaluation of the learning resulting from the cooperative education assignment. (JOW)

The usefulness of basic principles and methodology in the social sciences for stimulating research are discussed, but shown to be detrimental to teaching in the disciplines. To develop students' comprehension of knowledge it is argued that serious and professional reconsideration of governing principles is required. (Author/CM)

Two school districts in southwest Washington resolved practical concerns related to the mastery learning of writing skills. (Author/MLF)

Evaluates, in question/answer form, the available research literature on giving instructions/directions in terms of their effect on learning; presents a few guidelines on writing directions for practitioners; and points out some "missing links" in the area of research. (Author)

Addresses the problems of conducting predevelopment analyses in the military from a training developer's point of view, and discusses issues related to the basic questions of analysis and the rationale and method for performing it. (JEG)

Outlines Johnson's decision-making theory as a conceptual framework from which designers can work to facilitate effective relationships. The theory classifies clients into four styles: systematic internal, systematic external, spontaneous internal, and spontaneous external. (Author/JEG)