Instructional Principles Research Articles

Applying the First Principles of Instruction in a short-term, high volume, rapid production of online professional development modules

The purpose of this paper is to describe a case study conducted to examine the application of Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction (Educ Technol Res Dev 50(3):43–59, 2002, First principles of instruction, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, 2012) to determine how they were implemented during a fast-paced project that required the creation of a large number of online modules. Design and development research (Richey and Klein in Design and development research, Routledge/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2007) was employed to investigate the conditions and factors that impacted the decisions made by a design team including project leads, team leads, and instructional designers. Findings revealed that project requirements, personnel, physical setting, time, designer experience, training and team meetings influenced the use of the First Principles of Instruction.

Information Literacy in the Digital Age: Myths and Principles of Digital Literacy

Librarians have traditionally served as the champions of information literacy, adopting it as a core principle of the profession and creating a movement that tries to facilitate fair, equal access to knowledge and its creation. There are plenty of publications on this topic, but as the Information Age has become the Digital Age, there also needs to be a discussion of how information literacy is evolving. More specifically, librarians are now finding themselves shouldering the responsibilities of digital literacy alongside traditional approaches to information literacy, especially considering how more and more information needs can only be met via digital resources. This paper serves to add to this discussion by examining the different elements of the two literacies, the myths that surround them, and provide some basic principles of information literacy learning and instruction in the digital age.

Design of a Blended Learning Environment Based on Merrill’s Principles

Designing blended learning courses requires a systematic approach, in instructional design decisions and implementations, instructional principles help educators not only to specify the elements of the course, but also to provide a solid base from which to build the technology. The blended learning course was designed based on Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction with five phases. This paper helps inform educators about how to develop appropriate learning styles and preferences according to students’ learning needs.

Learning through Hallmark People in the content areas

This article shares aspects to consider when designing and implementing content area instruction through the study of people. It begins with a description of an inquiry that investigated students’ learning with the use of authentic literature and meaningful writing in social studies, and then extends to a discussion of how to apply these same instructional principles across content areas. To extend, it discusses texts and learning experiences to consider when creating curriculum centered on people.

Monolingualism is the Illiteracy of the Twenty-First Century

Monolingualism is the Illiteracy of the Twenty-First Century Gregg Roberts, Jamie Leite, and Ofelia Wade Keywords cultural competence/competencia cultural/competência cultural, dual language/dos lenguas/duas línguas, multilingual skills/destrezas multilingües/habilidades multilíngues, university coursework in high school/cursos universitarios durante escuela secundaria/cursos universitários no ensino médio Response 2 to "Language Proficiency: Envisioning the Win in the High School Spanish Classroom" Monolingualism is the illiteracy of the twenty-first century. On today's world stage, multilingual skills and cultural competence have taken lead roles in building a future global workforce. In response, the state of Utah is implementing an ambitious and unprecedented initiative to ameliorate language skills that address the state's business, government, and education needs. In 2008, under the visionary leadership of former Governor Jon Huntsman and State Senator Howard Stephenson, the Utah Legislature passed Senate Bill 41 (2008), providing funding for Dual Language Immersion (DLI) and charging the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) with creating a world-class DLI program. Utah's quest is to provide all students with the opportunity to become linguistically proficient and culturally competent in multiple languages. This means mainstreaming DLI for students of diverse abilities across all socioeconomic, ethnic, rural, urban, large and small school communities throughout the state (Leite and Cook 2015). Legislators and business leaders believe this to be a critical long-term investment in the viability and vitality of Utah's future economic competitiveness. In addition, Utah is committed to being responsive to the priorities of the native-speaking and heritage populations thriving in its communities (Eaton 2016). Utah is favored with the significant presence of a large Hispanic community and a fast growing Brazilian community, for whom the priority of preserving and passing on to future generations the rich tapestry of their language and culture parallels the state's goal of eradicating monolingualism. Therefore, both the Spanish and Portuguese DLI programs have intentionally grounded their respective literacy programs in the principles of responsive curriculum and instruction by 1) adopting authentic programs developed by and designed for native speakers, rich with cultural references; 2) embracing pedagogy that is highly student centered; 3) creating channels to facilitate meaningful interpersonal connections for the students through school partnerships with Brazil and Spanish speaking countries; 4) purposely hiring highly qualified international teachers from Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Spain, who bring their native language and culture live to the classroom, validating the cultural and linguistic identity of our native-speaking and heritage students! [End Page 116] DLI in Utah enjoys broad-based, cross-sectional support from our state community. Currently, there are 87 Spanish (30 two-way, 29 one-way, 28 secondary) and 6 Portuguese DLI schools in the state. With a rich diversity of languages, Utah also has 47 Chinese (33 one-way, 14 secondary), 20 French (13 one-way, 7 secondary), and 2 German DLI schools, with plans to add Russian and Arabic in the future. Utah DLI will serve over 32,000 students for the 2016–17 school year across 22 school districts and four charters from every corner of Utah. Despite the rapid increase in the number of schools, the state still falls short of meeting the current demand, as seen by the long wait lists that are common throughout the state. Utah educational leaders thoughtfully and intentionally selected a model that is not only rooted in research-based principles and practices of second language teaching, but is also responsive to the political landscape of the state and best meets its students' needs. Utah's DLI schools implement a fifty-fifty, two-teacher model for grades K–6, in which students spend half of their school day in the target language and the other half-day in English (Watzinger-Tharp, Swenson, and Mayne 2016). In grades seven and eight, the program offers a world language honors course and a culture, history and media course. In grade nine, participating students are expected to enroll in Advanced Placement (AP) language coursework and complete the AP exam or its language specific equivalent. Recently, Utah's K–12 program became a K–16 reality with the passage of Senate Bill 152 (2016), sponsored by...

Pedagogical aspects of teaching programming in C# by means of creating a multi-module project

The profession of a programmer at the height of the development of the IT industry is one ofthe most demanded in the labor market. Working in an IT company helps to ensure social securityand a decent standard of living. Many people would like to learn programming, but this process iscomplex and ambiguous. There are different approaches to teaching programming. The authorspresent a brief analytical review of existing methods and technologies for such training. It isconcluded that there are a variety of similar approaches that differ both in the field of application(school, university, courses, etc.) and in orientation (from theoretical to practical). The analysis ofexisting approaches allowed the authors to suggest their own method of teaching programming,based on the use of a multi-module project. Each module of the project includes the solution of aseparate task, starting from simple linear calculations and ending with the work with files anddatabases. At the same time, pedagogical principles of instruction are observed, such as thesequence of the course, the systematic nature of scientific knowledge, the gradual transition fromsimple to complex. However, each of the gradually more complicated tasks implies a solution notin a separate small project, but looks like an integral part of a large general project. Therefore, thedevelopment of such a project during laboratory studies allows students to learn the syntacticconstructions of the programming language, to do practical programming activities, to developskills in project activity and algorithmic thinking. In the future, the development of a softwarecomponent of a multi-module project and an experimental study of the effectiveness of the methodare suggested.

A comparative analysis of programming games, looking through the lens of an instructional design model and a game attributes taxonomy

The emerging trend of teaching computer programming to more and younger people has led to the development of game-based learning and teaching approaches. In this context, educational games are considered as a promising learning platform. However, research in the field of programming games has mainly focused on what is being taught in these games. Less is known, however, about how programming games afford learning and playing by design. To address this, we performed a qualitative, comparative analysis of 19 programming games from an instructional and game attributes perspective. The findings showed that a majority of programming games presents only a moderate alignment with established instructional principles. Furthermore, significant differences in the presence and prevalence of their game attributes were found. Our analysis resulted in a systematic classification of programming games according to their alignment with instructional principles and their positioning on a playing-versus-programming spectrum. Informed by this twofold classification, we explored whether particular programming games can still be conceptualized as games, as opposed to learning or programming environments. Accordingly, we formulated opportunities and restrictions towards their potential context-of-use.

A Synthesis of Technology-Mediated Mathematics Interventions for Students With or at Risk for Mathematics Learning Disabilities

With the increasing availability of technology and the emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, there is an urgent need to understand the impact of technology-mediated mathematics (TMM) interventions on student mathematics outcomes. The purpose of this study was to review studies on TMM interventions that target the mathematical outcomes of K–12 students with or at risk for mathematics learning disabilities (MLDs). A review of the literature revealed 19 studies (9 single-case and 10 group/quasi experimental designs) published between 2000 and 2016. Results suggest that TMM interventions had mainly positive results on the mathematics outcomes of students with or at risk for MLD. This study also examined the extent to which principles of explicit instruction were integrated in TMM interventions. While many of the interventions provided frequent practice opportunities with academic feedback, few complemented such practice opportunities with overt demonstrations and explanations of mathematical content. Implications for designing TMM interventions are discussed.

Applying “First Principles of Instruction” as a design theory of the flipped classroom: Findings from a collective study of four secondary school subjects

The flipped classroom approach is a type of technology-enhanced pedagogy that has grown popular in education settings. An increasing number of empirical studies have evaluated this approach, but there is still no adequate theoretical framework for guiding the design and implementation of flipped classrooms. Furthermore, few such studies have been conducted in secondary school contexts, and the effects of flipped classrooms have not been adequately compared with those of non-flipped classrooms. This study aims to address these research gaps by applying the meta design theory “First Principles of Instruction” to design our flipped classroom approach. A two-stage study was conducted in two secondary schools, involving a total of 382 students and five teacher participants from four subject areas, namely mathematics, physics, Chinese language, and information and communication technology (ICT). Based on the experience of the pilot study (Study 1), we refined our flipped classroom model and examined its efficacy through a quasi-experimental design in the main study (Study 2). Although the students in the flipped ICT course had learning outcomes similar to those of students in the non-flipped ICT course, the levels of student achievement in the other three courses (i.e., mathematics, physics, and Chinese language) were improved after flipping, with a small to medium-sized effects. The design, benefits, and challenges of the model are discussed. We conclude by making several recommendations for practice, and suggesting ideas for further research.

Mentoring teachers in systematic phonics instruction: effectiveness of an intensive year-long program for kindergarten through 3rd grade teachers and their students

Teaching systematic phonics effectively to beginning readers requires specialized knowledge and training which many primary grade teachers lack. The current study examined effects of a year-long mentoring program to improve teachers’ knowledge and effectiveness in teaching phonics and the extent that it improved students’ achievement in reading and spelling. Teachers in urban, lower SES schools completed a 45 h course followed by 90 h of in-school training. Mentors (N = 29) worked with kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers (N = 69) twice a week for 30 weeks during the year. Each visit included a 45 min prep period plus 45 min of modeling and feedback in the classroom. Mentors taught teachers how to provide systematic phonics instruction to their students (N = 1,336). Monthly ratings by mentors revealed that teachers improved their phonics teaching skills with many reaching the highest ratings by May. Teachers who were non-native speakers of English took a bit longer to learn the English sound system for letters, mainly because they lacked sufficient knowledge of English sounds and had to learn them. Given the increasing diversity of the teacher work force, future research is needed to study this difficulty, its solution, and impact on students. Teachers’ agreement with principles of phonics instruction remained strong or increased from fall to spring. Students’ reading and spelling skills showed large gains during the year and far exceeded effect sizes from comparable data sources. Students met grade-level expectations at the end of kindergarten and first grade but fell short in second and third grades. General education students outperformed bilingual/ELL and special needs students although all subgroups made large gains. Findings reveal the effectiveness of an intensive mentoring model of professional development applied to a subject that is difficult to teach and to a student population known for lower reading achievement. Findings point to the need for better pre-service teacher preparation coupled with appropriate curricula and PD from districts in order to improve students’ reading achievement.

Meaningful and contextualised grammar instruction: what can foreign language textbooks offer?

ABSTRACTThis article explores the methodological approaches offered in grammar exercises in a selection of French as a foreign language textbooks produced for the Scandinavian market. It investigates the extent to which developments within the research fields of second language acquisition and language pedagogy are reflected in current textbooks and thus to what extent these books can help teachers provide students with meaningful and varied grammar exercises. By using established typologies as the analytical framework, the range of different exercise types is examined. Findings reveal that the developments within the research fields concerning meaningful and contextualised grammar instruction are finally beginning to find their way into some of the teaching material. This trend is more prominent for lower secondary than for upper secondary textbooks. The study concludes that in most cases teachers must still add supplementary material in order to teach in accordance with research-based principles for grammar instruction.

TEACHING ENGLISH READING ABILITY FOR SECOND/FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS

This article discusses the factors that affect the teaching of reading skills in English, for which the learners of English is the second language (L2) or as a foreign language (FL) and the alternative activities that may be done on the learning process in order to achieve the goals of effective reading learning. There are seven teaching principles that are needed to be considered and developed by reading teachers in the classes of English as second or foreign language. The seven principles of instruction should be applied in designing the reading class of English as a foreign language. The implementation of the seven principles will further optimize the students' reading ability in reading class of English as a foreign language for the students.

Inquiry-Oriented Instruction: A Conceptualization of the Instructional Principles

Research has highlighted that inquiry-based learning (IBL) instruction leads to many positive student outcomes in undergraduate mathematics. Although this research points to the value of IBL instruction, the practices of IBL instructors are not well-understood. Here, we offer a characterization of a particular form of IBL instruction: inquiry-oriented instruction. This characterization draws on K-16 research literature in order to explicate the instructional principles central to inquiry-oriented instruction. As a result, this conceptualization of inquiry-oriented instruction makes connections across research communities and provides a characterization that is not limited to undergraduate, secondary, or elementary mathematics education.

Instructional principles used to teach critical comprehension skills to a Grade 4 learner

The current approach to reading comprehension instruction is not producing the desired outcomes. Provincial, national and international tests indicate that more than half of South African learners cannot read, understand and answer basic comprehension questions. This research project was informed by Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory. A case study was conducted with a ten-year old Grade 4 boy who experienced difficulty with understanding comprehension questions. A six-week intervention was designed to improve his comprehension abilities and to identify instructional principles that were appropriate for him. Interviews and observations were conducted and inductively analysed. Findings showed that the learner was well equipped to retrieve explicitly stated information but struggled with higher-order level questions such as drawing inferences or evaluating content. Certain instructional practices were more favourable than others when teaching reading strategies.

Students’ Perceptions about Gamification of Education: A Q-Method Analysis

The present study aimed to determine how the gamification of the educational process is perceived by the students, whether the students’ views are unified around a common ground for the concept of gamification, and to highlight the prominent elements of gamification. In this study, the Q methodology, which contains a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, was used. The Q methodology aims to put forward people’s perspectives, ideas, beliefs, and attitudes subjectively and systematically in the scientific research process. The participants of the study consisted of 34 sophomores in Faculty of Education who voluntarily participated in the Instructional Principles and Methods course in a gamified design in the Fall 2014 semester. The results of the study indicated that students do adopt common thoughts about the process of gamification in education, and it is in positive manner. In addition, prominent elements of gamification were logic of the process, emotions, advancement structure, achievement points, and badges. Furthermore, the sum of Z scores of dynamics and mechanics were doubles that of the components.

Evaluation of Current Condition of Physical Education Curriculum of Iranian High Schools and the Prescribed Strategies to Improve Its Overall Situation Based on Expertise Ideas and Viewpoints

The ultimate goal of such inquiry and meticulous investigation is to evaluate the current condition of physical education curriculum of Iranian high schools and the strategies that can be employed in a path of improving its overall situation based on expertise ideas and their total viewpoint is such given pivotal affair. This investigation has been conducted in accordance with pathological phenomenology and sampling with regard of practical and feasible drawn-target and qualitative approach and method. The cited interviews were designated for 15 connoisseurs in the firmament of physical education. The figurative and the content narration of the study has evaluated in compliance with expertise viewpoints and ideas. The total findings and discovered entities as off-springs of expertise ideas in the fields of “fulfilling student’s expectances and their needs and desires”, “attention toward the reals of science, capacity and sight-perspectives”, has been extracted and summarized. The conclusion and overall gains of given investigation manifested that the criteria of high school curriculum were not expedient and appropriate in the fields of target, content, the employed pathological principle of instruction and the given evaluation in-use and it never satisfied the visualized expectance of expertise.

Universal principles of learning require unique applications for gifted students.

In 2015, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a document titled Top 20 Principles From Psychology for PreK-12 Teaching and Learning (APA, Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education, 2015). It was derived from a multiyear effort by psychologists from a number of subdisciplines, including evaluation, measurement, and statistics; developmental psychology; personality and social psychology; the psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts; consulting psychology; educational psychology; school psychology; counseling psychology; community psychology; psychology of women; media psychology and technology; group psychology and group psychotherapy; psychological study of men and masculinity; and clinical child and adolescent psychology. The report stemmed from a thought experiment: If you could promote only two principles that were essential for student learning and well-being, what would they be? The group came to a consensus on the drop dead principles that teachers needed to master to be successful in the classroom. The list started off with over 40 contenders, and as a result of debate over the evidence for each one, the pool was narrowed to the top 20. The results of these multiyear discussions led to a peerreviewed document that described each principle and its classroom applications and included primary references. The document has been translated into Spanish, Mandarin, Slovenian and Turkish (see http://www.apa.org/ed/schools/teaching-learning/top-twentyprinciples.aspx) and will soon be available in French, Arabic, Serbian, Portuguese, and Korean. The 20 principles are presented here by topic:How do students think and learn?1. Students' beliefs or perceptions about intelligence and ability affect their cognitive functioning and learning.2. What students already know affects their learning.3. Students' cognitive development and learning are not limited by general stages of development.4. Learning is based on context, so generalizing learning to new contexts is not spontaneous but instead needs to be facilitated.5. Acquiring long-term knowledge and skill is largely dependent on practice.6. Clear, explanatory, and timely feedback to students is important for learning.7. Students' self-regulation assists learning, and self-regulatory skills can be taught.8. Student creativity can be fostered.What motivates students?9. Students tend to enjoy learning and perform better when they are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated to achieve.10. Students persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals.11. Teachers' expectations about their students affect students' opportunities to learn, their motivation, and their learning outcomes.12. Setting goals that are short term (proximal), specific, and moderately challenging enhances motivation more than does establishing goals that are long term (distal), general, and overly challenging.Why are social context, interpersonal relationships, and emotional well-being important to student learning?13. Learning is situated within multiple social contexts.14. Interpersonal relationships and communication are critical to both the teaching-learning process and the social-emotional development of students.15. Emotional well-being influences educational performance, learning, and development.How can the classroom best be managed?16. Expectations for classroom conduct and social interaction are learned and can be taught using proven principles of behavior and effective classroom instruction.17. Effective classroom management is based on (a) setting and communicating high expectations, (b) consistently nurturing positive relationships, and (c) providing a high level of student support.How should student progress be assessed?18. …

Application of Emulation Instruction in Engineering Education

The advantages and disadvantages of emulation instruction in engineering education were analyzed in this paper. Based on constructivism, the basic principles of emulation instruction were presented. Emulation instruction can not completely replace the physical experiments, so the two teaching methods should be closely combined, complementary advantages, and the similarity of simulation scene should be improved for training teaching.

Learning from errors in dual vocational education: video-enhanced instructional strategies

PurposeStarting from the identification of some theoretically driven instructional principles, this paper presents a set of empirical cases based on strategies to learn from errors. The purpose of this paper is to provide first evidence about the feasibility and the effectiveness for learning of video-enhanced error-based strategies in vocational education and training.Design/methodology/approachFour different cases are presented. All of them share the same design-based research perspective, in which teachers and researchers co-designed an (iterative) intervention in the field. Two cases are preliminary investigations, while the other two profit from a quasi-experimental design with at least one experimental condition based on error treatment and a control group.FindingsThe four cases show the effectiveness of learning from error (and from error analysis). More specifically, they show the validity and flexible adoption of the specific instructional principles derived from the literature review: the use of inductive strategies and in particular, of worked-out examples; the reference to a concrete, possibly personal, experience for the analysis task; the use of prompted writing to elicit self-explanations and reflection; and the use of video for recording and annotating the situation to be analysed.Research limitations/implicationsThe four cases constitute only a starting point for further research into the use of errors for procedural learning. Moreover, the cases presented are focused on learning in the domain of procedural knowledge and not in that of declarative knowledge. Further studies in the vocational education and training sector might serve this research area.Practical implicationsThe paper provides concrete indications and directions to implement effective instructional strategies for procedural learning from errors, especially within vocational education.Social implicationsErrors are often identified with and attributed to (individual) failures. In both learning institutions and the workplace, this can engender an intolerant and closed climate towards mistakes, preventing real professional development and personal growth. Interventions on learning from errors in schools and workplaces can play a role in changing such a culture and in creating a tolerant and positive attitude towards them.Originality/valueThe majority of studies about learning from errors are focused on disciplinary learning in academic contexts. The present set of cases contributed to filling in the gap related to initial vocational education, because they deal with learning from errors in dual vocational training in the field of procedural knowledge development. Moreover, a specific contribution of the presented cases relies on the use of video annotation as a support that specifically enhances error analysis within working procedures.

Understanding the Tyler rationale: Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction in historical context

This historical study attempts to contribute to our understanding of the widely recognized and widely critiqued Tyler rationale for the development of curriculum and instruction by explaining it in the historical context in which Ralph Tyler developed it, by tracing its origins in Tyler’s work, and by reconstructing a history of the course, Education 360, Tyler taught at the University of Chicago. This analysis found that Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, which emerged from Tyler’s field work with teachers and professors and his conception of evaluation, is best understood as a study guide that Tyler prepared for the use of his students in the course by that name that he taught during the 1940s and 1950s. This analysis found that Tyler’s rationale was remarkable in its time for its embrace of three curriculum sources, its conception of education essentially as experience, its approach to assessment as evaluation rather than as measurement, its approach to curriculum development as a problem-solving process, and its commitment to teacher participation in the development of curriculum and instruction.