Instructional Design and Teaching Styles

Introduction

Decisions about what subject matter should be included in a course and how it should be organized are crucial to the success of distance education courses. The greater need for advanced planning and the greater difficulty involved in coordinating interactions at multiple sites mean that casual, extemporaneous approaches to the classroom are more likely to encounter problems.

The need to make thoughtful decisions about how organize course material is particularly important when seen from the students' viewpoint. In a recent survey of first year students the CIRT asked students to compare about their favorite/least favorite courses. We learned just how important it is to students that the course be organized & organized to make a point. From Kenneth Bain's study of excellent college teaching we assumed that courses that integrate their aims and activities around learning goals would be considered to be well-crafted and presumed to be more valuable learning experiences than courses where direction was unclear or connections between activities uncertain. Students said that their favorite courses had clear connections (90.2%) and provided challenging experiences (82%). In least favorite courses, by contrast, students were less likely to see the connection (27. 8%) or find the activities learning challenges (13.5%). Instead, nearly half(47.7%) did not see the connection between activities and course aims and more than two-thirds (71.7%) did not find the course activities interesting or challenging!

The lesson is clear. If you want to make your classes more memorable, they must be crafted.

The process of planning courses so that the parts work well together has been the subject of study for over 30 years. In this handbook, we will outline four different approaches that have been developed. They are not necessarily exclusive. Nor is one necessarily always correct in all settings. The teacher's art is finding the combinations that work well at bringing together students, teachers, media, and content.

Before looking at these approaches in detail, it is important to recognize that they share a common (and commonsensical) process. First, the educator reviews the goals, aims, and/or objectives for the lesson. We gave you an example of an inventory developed by Angelo and Cross. The second step is for educators to select activities that help reach the goals. There are many different guidelines for choosing activities that accomplish different types of goals; moreover, every activity must be seen as realistically contributing toward reaching the goal (some activities only appear to be helping). Finally, educators evaluate how well the unit was able to reach its goals. Note that while this may include student evaluations, it is not necessarily the same thing. Some (or much) of the feedback should be directed at improving the lesson itself.

In the rest of this short handbook, four different approaches at this planning process will be described. They are roughly organized around Tony Grasha's teaching styles (see week 4) and somewhat linked to different parts of Angelo and Cross's inventory. They are presented here in a more simplified form than probably used in actual decision making in order to emphasize the different starting points so that you can begin with the one that best suits you and your class.

Connections to other Instructional Design and Teaching Styles pages:
Formal Authority Teaching Style
Facilitator Teaching Style
Demonstrator Teaching Style
Delegator Teaching Style

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