Instructional Delivery System Research Articles

The horse before the cart: A theory based approach to using computers in education

When schools in the United States use computers as part of their instructional practices with minority children, they tend to use the same practices that take place without the technology, namely, remediation (Boruta et al., 1983; Center for the Social Organization of Schools, 1983). Computers are used primarily as instructional delivery systems to provide drill and practice programs instead of as tools (e.g., word processors, databases, spreadsheets) to investigate problems in subject matter areas. In working with minority children, we believe enrichment is a better strategy for addressing academic achievement problems (Brophy, 1988). Our approach to using computers with minority children is to focus on enrichment. We have viewed

The future is now—and it is education

Education is the foundation for America's successful future! Increasingly, education is not just a discretionary decision for individual growth and enhancement, but is necessary for national strength and survival. Responsibility for the architectural design and strengthening of our educational foundation rests with American educators who must adapt emerging technology, design instructional delivery systems, and lead learning processes that will enable the nation to be globally competitive in the uncertainty of an everchanging world.

Teaching Critical Thinking: Bringing the Real World into the Classroom

Educators have recently begun to stress the importance of teaching critical-thinking skills. California Executive Order Number 338 mandates that no less than nine semester hours of an undergraduate's education at a state system school be devoted to improving communication skills and critical-thinking skills (Walters 1986). The National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) recommended that all subject matter areas should try to develop critical-thinking skills. Throughout the nation, programs to teach critical-thinking skills are being implemented from grade school to the college level. For example, undergraduate schools such as Bloomfield College (Sadler and Whimbey 1985), the University of Louisville (Blum and Spanghel 1979) and Bowling Green University (Woditsch 1978) have instituted formal programs. Programs on the elementary levels include Lipman's (1985) Philosophy for Children, Feuerstein's (1980) Instrumental Enrichment, and the Chicago Mastery Learning Project (Jones 1982). Though many programs are being developed, a number of controversies exist regarding instruction in criticalthinking skills. The major controversies include defining the skills to be taught and designing instructional delivery systems that promote the generalized use of these skills.

Effects of Instructional Delivery System and Training Parameter Manipulations on Electromechanical Maintenance Performance

A research program is presented in which computer assisted instructional (CAI) based delivery systems were compared with other training media to determine the extent to which instruction delivered via these methods affects performance on electromechanical maintenance tasks. Summaries of two preliminary studies are presented and a third study is discussed in greater detail. In the latter study opportunity for hands-on practice, access to job aids, and instructional delivery system parameters were manipulated. Performance was measured immediately following training and again after a one-week interval. Both handson practice of the maintenance activity and access to job aids during training were found to significantly improve maintenance performance. However, no differences in performance of procedural maintenance tasks were found among students who were trained using CAI-based as opposed to other lower technology-based instructional delivery systems.

Evaluation Techniques for Individualized Instruction: Revision and Summative Evaluation

The initiation of an information delivery system that differs from the typical lecture-laboratory format of a course always presents concerns for both the instructor and students. The success of a new system can only be measured through a careful summative evaluation process. This article describes the process of the gathering and analysis of summative data for a slide/audio-tape self-instruction program on animal diversity in an introductory zoology course. Included also are some aspects of the continuing process of review and refined revision of the instructional delivery system as it applies directly to summative evaluation. The self-instruction program involves five individual units covering important topics in animal diversity. These topics are taxonomy, animal protists (protozoans), lower vs. higher invertebrates, and chordates.

Educational Impact of a Telecourse Instructional Delivery System

Educational Impact of a Telecourse Instructional Delivery System

Advances in Technology Translate into New Opportunities

Opportunities for improving schools and instructional delivery systems are limitless, believes this author, who urges educators to yield to their imaginations when they are planning for what technology can do for education.

The microeconomics of referral and reintegration: A paradigm for evaluation of special education

The term (SE), as used in the United States, is currently reserved to describe a host of educational and related clinical activities for handicapped populations. As a service delivery system, SE is directed toward a wide array of mental, physical, and behavioral pupil characteristics. The diversity of administrative structures subsumed by the concept is such as to defy generalizations pertaining to salient defining criteria. However, both policymakers and practitioners tend to allude to SE as if to communicate a unified, standardized, and replicable organization and instructional delivery system. Similarly, the term Education Evaluation is frequently used to imply an attempt to draw conclusions about the SE enterprise in general - ignoring the variation that naturally exists in operationalizing SE among school districts. It is common to refer to SE programs by alluding to the categorical labels of the pupils they are designed to service. Hence, we find reference to Learning Disabilities (LD) programs, Mental Retardation (MR) programs, and the like. Added confusion exists in the practice of referring to such programs by using administrative variables as identifiers, while implicitly inferring instructional characteristics (e.g., Resource Room, Special Class, Mainstreaming programs). This latter practice apparently ignores the overlaps that exist in instructional practices across and within administrative arrangements (Semmel, Gottlieb, & Robinson, 1979). It suffices to assert that there is no current universal set of defining features that adequately describe pupil characteristics and instructional interventions operationally included under the rubric of special education in the United States. There is no currently acceptable, empirically or theoretically based scheme for uniquely matching specific instructional activities to unique characteristics of mentally and/or behaviorally handicapped pupils in the schools. This paper discusses the problems inherent in attempting to evaluate the SE enterprise rather than specific, local arrangements for instructing handicapped children. It argues first that these problems arise from essentially uncritical assumptions about the relationship between rules of inference in experimental science and evaluation of activities generated by public policy. Moreover, these evaluation problems are viewed as being maintained by an invalid application of what might be termed an ed-psychometric scientific paradigm (Shapiro, 1984). Classical psychometric orientations tend to limit evaluation research to

A Comparison of Three Instructional Approaches in Teaching the Use of the Abridged Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature

The age of information is upon us and as educators we must teach students how to retrieve information. Three instructional delivery systems were compared for effectiveness in the teaching of library media information retrieval skills. These were: 1) microcomputer-based courseware, 2) lecture, and 3) independent-reading. The eighth grade English classes at the Butler Middle School were randomly selected for placement in one of the above groups. As a result of the study, the statistical analysis indicated that the microcomputer-based courseware was identical in instructional effectiveness to the lecture approach. In addition, both the microcomputer-based and the lecture approach were more effective than the independent-reading method.

Technological tools for rural special education.

Many of the problems of education relate to communication issues. The developing new technologies offer considerable promise because of their information orientation. The realization of these promises will depend on the degree to which rural educators prepare themselves to capitalize on the advantages and avoid the problems associated with the new technologies. One of the advantages of the new information technologies is the potential to support the concept of “universal excellence” in instructional delivery systems.

“Updating” Individualism and the Work Ethic: Corporate Logic in the Classroom

One of the most significant developments in education over the past decade or so has been the widespread of systems management models for individualizing instruction. The systems approach is perhaps best represented in comprehensive individualized instruction systems which provide a total plan and program for instructional reorganization at the school level. These instructional delivery systems, as they have been called (Talmage 1975a), were initially developed in the mid-1960's to late 1960's, and they represent a prime example of how private industry has cooperated with, and been assisted by, a growing federal and professional educational bureaucracy in the application of new business management concepts and techniques in American schools. The three most popular comprehensive systems for individualization are Individually Guided Education (IGE), Individually Prescribed Instruction (IPI), and Program for Learning in Accordance with Needs (Project PLAN*). The first two were developed by federally sponsored research and development centers, with foundation and publishing industry support. The latter system was designed and has been marketed exclusively by the Westinghouse Learning Corporation. Today, over 3000 elementary schools in the United States, representing approximately 4% of the national total, have made the complex changeover to individualization through systems management (Flanagan et al. 1975, p. 160; Klausmeier 1975, p. 79). Although the rate of adoption has slackened somewhat in the past few years, this may be due more to tightening school budgets than to any disenchantment with either the efficiency or the pedagogic merits of individualization. Under the Reagan administration, federal support for systems management approaches in education continues, but in a more free market form. Now that industry has benefitted from years of federal subsidization of research on systems models, technologies, and curricula, the federal role is decreasing. Private industry is expected to assume more of the ongoing cost of fine-tuning the systems model in the 1980s, and of course will reap the substantial profits to be gained from marketing individualized instructional systems and periodically supplying users with updated curricular materials, testing programs, educational technology, etc. (Apple 1981).

Older Adult Physical Education: Research Implications for Instruction

With increasing longevity and numbers of older adults, the need, both economic and humanistic, is present for physical educators to take the leadership in translating research in exercise physiology, motor learning, sociology, and psychology into beneficial physical education programs. Research is still needed in how the elderly learn and maintain motor skills and the effect of participation on motor performance. However, from the research in existence some implications can be drawn for guidance in establishing the instructional delivery system for the movement program. These guidelines include ways to accommodate reduced perceptual abilities, motivation, and physiological functioning to maximize success in physical activity programs.

Training System Management Plans

New instructional delivery systems have proven feasible and effective for both cognitive and skill training. Use of a particular methodology is based on many factors: student characteristics, training curriculum, site and funding, among others. Each delivery system requires a custom tailored management plan that should be developed and tested concurrent with the curriculum development phase. Management plans can be designed to fit existing curricula although this is, at times, difficult and not optimal. This paper will review various generic instructional delivery systems and identify their uses in group and individualized instructional modes. Finally, factors to be included in an instructional management plan will be discussed. The information presented is not a procedural guide for designing an instructional management plan. Rather, it is a guide for instructional system designers, working with management, to ensure all facets of the curriculum are reviewed in depth prior to making a decision on the management plan to be used. Further, it will identify the information necessary to produce a practical Training System Procedure Manual.

Motivations and Deterrents to Educational Use of “Intelligent Videodisc” Systems

The “intelligent videodisc” — a combination of advanced microprocessor, display, and storage technology — holds the potential for developing into a powerful instructional delivery system. In an inexpensive package, it could combine advanced computer-aided instruction (CAI) software power and display capability for audio, video, and textual programming. Attractive technically though it is, this system's real contribution will be that CAI will fit the institutional structure of education for the first time. In contrast to existing, large-scale CAI systems, this small-scale device could be purchased locally, e.g., by one teacher or administrator. Another unique attribute of this technology is its potential attractiveness to consumers. Acceptance in the home may speed acceptance in schools.Despite these unique characteristics, this new technology will face some of the same traditional barriers to innovation in education that have doomed other systems. It is likely that many teachers will retain their unwillingness to innovate using technology. Tight budgets will remain because of shrinking student populations and voter apathy. High costs might restrict software availability.This paper investigates these and other driving forces and barriers to use of the “intelligent videodisc” as a personal instructional delivery system. The paper can serve as a platform for a discussion of needs and opportunities for a Federal role in promoting educational utilization of this system.

From HOW to WHAT to WHY: The search for educational utility

Educational technologists have moved from a unique concern with the how-to-do-its of behavior change (such as television, computers, and instructional delivery systems) to the inclusion ofwhat to teach. This expanded scope was encouraged and made possible by the pioneering work on measurable objectives.

Reaching Them Where They Are

For more than a century we have expected our children to give education their undivided attention-to go to a special place at a special time and be taught by special people. This kind of formal education now occurs in dozens of styles-traditional, individualized, open. It is enormously expensive (currently about $40 billion a year in the United States), and yet it is still not completely meeting the needs of many. An additional way to teach large numbers of children-reaching them where they are rather than requiring that they come to school-is possible through modern mass systems of distribution, entertainment, communication, and transportation. Developing these systems for educational purposes will require an understanding of a new kind of education which I have called instruction. Concomitant instruction differs from formal schooling in that it is not designed for those times when children are focused on learning, but is meant to accompany noninstructional activities. It is the art of teaching to divided attention. Though it currently lacks developmental guidelines and practical coordination, concomitant instruction is already reaching millions of children daily. To clarify how it differs from other forms of instruction, it can be placed on a spectrum of instructional delivery systems running from formal school, to nonformal classes in civic centers or factories, to television programs such as Sesame Street, and finally to concomitant instruction itself. Though these systems blend into one another, they can be clearly distinguished according to the freedom of the learners, their purposes or expectations, the amount of consecutive time and specially designated space required for learning, and the instructional strategies used to obtain and hold attention.

Gentrain: An instructional delivery system

AbstractHow Monterey Peninsula College achieved an interdisciplinary general education program with a time‐modulated and highly mediated format.