An instructional theory is "a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop." It provides insights about what is likely to happen and why with respect to different kinds of teaching and learning activities while helping indicate approaches for their evaluation. Instructional designers focus on how to best structure material and instructional behavior to facilitate learning.
Development
Originating in the United States in the late 1970s, instructional theory is influenced by three basic theories in educational thought: behaviorism, the theory that helps us understand how people conform to predetermined standards; cognitivism, the theory that learning occurs through mental associations; and constructivism, the theory explores the value of human activity as a critical function of gaining knowledge. Instructional theory is heavily influenced by the 1956 work of Benjamin Bloom, a University of Chicago professor, and the results of his Taxonomy of Education Objectives—one of the first modern codifications of the learning process. One of the first instructional theorists was Robert M. Gagne, who in 1965 published Conditions of Learning for the Florida State University's Department of Educational Research.
Definition
Instructional theory is different than learning theory. A learning theory describes how learning takes place, and an instructional theory prescribes how to better help people learn. Instructional theory helps us create conditions that increases the probability of learning. Its goal is understanding the instructional system and to improve the process of instruction.
Overview
Instructional theories identify what instruction or teaching should be like. It outlines strategies that an educator may adopt to achieve the learning objectives. Instructional theories are adapted based on the educational content and more importantly the learning style of the students. They are used as teaching guidelines/tools by teachers/trainers to facilitate learning. Instructional theories encompass different instructional methods, models and strategies.
- Task-Centered Principle - instruction should use a progression of increasingly complex whole tasks.
- Demonstration Principle - instruction should guide learners through a skill and engage peer discussion/demonstration.
- Application Principle - instruction should provide intrinsic or corrective feedback and engage peer-collaboration.
- Activation Principle - instruction should build upon prior knowledge and encourage learners to acquire a structure for organizing new knowledge.
- Integration Principle - instruction should engage learners in peer-critiques and synthesizing newly acquired knowledge.
Situational Methods:
- Knowledge selection
- Knowledge sequence
- Interaction management
- Setting of interaction environment
Critiques
Paulo Freire's work appears to critique instructional approaches that adhere to the knowledge acquisition stance, and his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed has had a broad influence over a generation of American educators with his critique of various "banking" models of education and analysis of the teacher-student relationship.
Freire explains, "Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into "containers", into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are."
- These tacit concepts, which supply the ontological categories, enable a more detailed comparison of theories beyond specific terminologies.