Timeline of The Key Philosophical and Psychological Foundations of Educational Technology
By Ran Gao
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Behaviorism
Behaviorism is is a theory of learning which states all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment. Behaviorism as an educational learning theory led to the development of several aspects of instruction and learning production, including direct instruction, lecture, behavioral objective as classroom management etc. -
Lev Vygotsky: Zone of Proximal Development
The Zone of Proximal Development is defined as the space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a learner can do with adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. Instructional designers can develop more accurate materials based on this theory. -
The Origins of Instructional Design: World War ll
During the World War II, America Army developed military training programs to solve technical issues. For example, audiovisual devices and instructional films were used to train soldiers. he practice during World War II became the foundation of further development on educational technology. -
Cone of Experience
Cone of experience was proposed by Edgar Dale. Dale's Cone of Experience is a model that integrated several theories related to instructional design and learning processes. The cone is to show the progression of learning experiences from the concrete to the abstract. The concept continues to influence educational technologists in the 21st Century. -
Skinner: The science of learning and the Art of Teaching-The Programmed Instruction Movement
The programmed instruction movement was one of the main factors in developing systems approach. Skinner claimed that the programmed instruction movement should be used step by step, could answer questions that are frequently being asked, provided on time feedback and let learners study on their own rhythms. The movement proved an empirical approach in helping solving educational problems. -
Benjamin Bloom: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
Benjamin identified various types of learning objectives in the cognitive domain that can be classified according to the learner's behavioral goals, and these different types of outcomes have a hierarchical relationship. Test should be used to identify these outcomes. This idea influenced other educators theories for systematic design. -
Robert Mager: Behavioral Objectives
Robert Mager wrote a book of teaching instructors how to design learning objectives. In his book, he identifies three elements for describing learning objectives: description of the learner's behavior, the context in which the behavior is exhibited, and the criteria for judging the behavior. Nowadays, many teachers still use these tree elements in instructional design. Each edition of this book has sold over 1.5 million copies. -
Robert M. Gagné: Hierarchical Analysis
Gagne pointed out that in the intelligence area, skills have a hierarchical relationship. In order to easily learn to perform the superior skill, one must first acquire the skill that is subordinate to it. In many instructional design models, the hierarchical analysis is still a key factor. -
Robert Glaser: The Criterion-Refereneced Measures
Robert Glaser created the term criterion-referenced measures. The term can be applied in evaluating students' basic level behaviors and deciding the range of students acquired behaviors in an instructional design process. This is another factor that helps develop the instructional design process. -
Robert M. Gagné: Domains of Learning and Events of Instruction
Gagne mentioned five domains of learning outcomes in his book The conditions of learning. The five domains include verbal information, intellectual skills, psychomotor skills, attitudes, and cognitive strategies. In the book, he also described nine events of instruction, he believed that the nine events of instruction was important for promoting different types of learning outcomes. Gagne's theories are considered as the foundation of instructional design practices. -
Formative and Summative Evaluation
Michael Scriven created the definition of formative and summative evaluation. He claimed that using drafts and revising the learning and teaching materials is necessary for teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of materials. The two evaluations provide the theoretical basis for today's evaluation techniques. -
Burgeoning of Interest in the Systems Approach
Many scholars created new models for systematically instructions during 1970s. Not only in academical area, but also in industry and business area, lots of instructional improvement centers were built to help teachers use media and instructional design programs to improve the teaching quality. Also, many countries started to try out the instructional design to solve teaching and learning issues. -
The Increasing Interest in the Use of Microcomputers
In 1980s, the use of microcomputers I instructional design growing rapidly. Professors started to conduct computer-based instructions. Computer also became tools to do instructional tasks from this time. -
The Performance Technology Movement
This movement broadened the range of instructional design. Instructional designers started to analyze the reason of performance problems, and found out inadequate training or the lack of training were not the reason. So instructional designers started to regulate the non-instructional plans. As a result, the activities instructional designers involved enlarged a lot. -
Electronic Performance Support Systems
Electronic performance support systems are computer-based systems which provide assistance to workers to complete certain job tasks. Because of this system, educational institutions did not do trainings anymore, they turned to design designing electronic performance support systems. -
Constructivism
Constructivism influenced the instructional principles: 1. solve complex and realistic issues; 2. solve these issues together; 3. use multiple perspectives to examine the problems; 4. take over the studying process but not learning passively; 5. realize the personal function in constructivism. The theory of constructivism provided theory foundation for professionals in instructional design field. -
Using the Internet for Distance Learning
Distance learning increased quickly since 1995, people aware that simply move the face to face class to online could not work, classes must be designed carefully. The high demand of high quality online teaching created new job opportunities for instructional designers. -
Rapid Prototyping
Rapid Prototyping was a new trend in instructional design at that time. It involves creating a prototype production the early phase of instructional design, then having a rapid test and revision cycles, until producing the acceptable product. This kind of design method has been suggested as a mew way to produce high quality teaching materials. In 1990s, more and more experts in instructional design area had great interest on rapid prototyping. -
Knowledge Management
Knowledge management involves identifying, recording and transferring explicit and tacit knowledge in a certain organization. The purpose is you improve the performance of organizations. As the interests of knowledge management grow, instructional designers and experts not only be responsible for lifting human performance, but also take the responsibility of finding and improving access to useful organizational knowledge. This may enlarge the task types of instructional designers. -
Connectivism
Proposed by George Siemens andStephen Downes in 2004–2005, Connectivism was the first internet-native learning theory.Siemens defined connectivism as the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, andcomplexity and self-organization theories. -
Learning Analytics
Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments. It helps analysis learners behavior according to the signals learners release.