Instructional Design Principles

To solve problems, students follow a set of steps. A strategy is a series of steps students use to achieve a goal. In instruction, it is important that these steps initially be made overt.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

Learning is most efficient when a teacher can make it explicit. Strategies are most effective when they are of medium breadth and generalizable.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

Successful acquisition of new information depends largely on (a) the knowledge the learner brings to a task, (b) the accuracy of that information, and (c) the degree to which the learner accesses and uses that information.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

On new or difficult tasks, support may be substantial at first and then be systematically removed as learners acquire knowledge and skills.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

For students with disabilities and diverse learning needs, this is critical to success because it addresses the memory and strategy deficits they bring to certain tasks. In effect, it is a brief reminder or prompt that alerts the learner to task dimensions or to retrieve known information.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

For new information to be understood and applied, it should be carefully combined with what the learner already knows and understands to produce a more generalizable, higher-order skill.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

Simple repetition of information does not necessarily ensure efficient learning; it must be carefully considered. Successful learning depends on a review process to reinforce the essential building blocks of information within a subject area.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

It is the carefully controlled combination of what the student already knows with what he or she has to learn so that the relationship between these two elements is clear and results in new or more complete knowledge.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

The focus is on the prerequisites for learning important concepts so that they might be integrated meaningfully.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review

It should be: 

* sufficient to enable a student to perform a task without hesitation. 

* distributed over time. 

* cumulative, and the information should be integrated into more complex tasks. 

* varied to illustrate the wide application of a student’s understanding of the information.

• Strategic Integration

• Conspicuous Strategy

• Mediated Scaffolding

• Primed Background Knowledge

• Judicious Review