O L A :
T H E O R E T I C A L   M O D E L S

The rest of this section is intended to be a general overview of some key educational models that have been incorporated into the plans for the Oracle Learning Architechture (OLA). For a detailed discussion of these theories, please see the associated references.

L E A R N I N G   O N   T H E  W E B

Generally speaking, there are two important statements about learning and instruction:

• One learns by doing something (psychology).
• One learns by pursuing an instructional goal (education sciences).

Some basic academic misconceptions about learning should be avoided.

• Reading or seeing does not imply much learning.
• Being able to recall knowledge does not mean being able to apply knowledge.
• Efficiency is not measured by mastery of the exercises and tests of a courseware tool, but my mastery of the task.

However, academic traditions do provide the learning environment designer with important key ideas:

• Learning must take place within optional external conditioning. (behaviorism)
• Learning is related to active problem solving and involves integration, construction, and compilation of new content. (cognitivism)
• Learning is constrained by human cognitive capacities. (experimental psychology)

Learning environments are a combination of tasks, agents, and courseware products aimed at supporting learning processes. Learning takes place mostly in interaction between learners, courseware products, other tools, and to a lesser degree tutors (human or artificial).

Courseware is always a combination of elements, such as:

• Textual material (including textual representations)
• Simulation models
• Exercises
• Problems
• Feedback information

Learning environments should enable:

• Transfer of educational information
• Organization of pedagogically optimized access to this information using appropriate interfaces and structuring of the material
• Implementation of instructional tactics
  • Giving examples
  • Multiple choice questions
  • Asking the student to perform a task
• Suggestion of learning strategies to the student
• Implementation of instructional strategies—sequencing of teaching materials

These can be combined with technical or Web-based applications:

• Information servers to look up information from manuals, books, expositions, bibliographies, programs
• Curricula and guidance to lessons and exercises in hypertext format
• Collaborative work such as dynamic hypertext, conferencing systems, and chatrooms
• Question-and-answering in tests or Skinner and Bloom type learning
• Interface to local clients for simulations, programming environments, and tutors

These technological support elements must all be there to optimize learning. However, they can be implemented in many different ways (Schneider, 1994).

Teacher		Provides something between loose guidance and direct instruction. It can be a human agent (present or distant) or an intelligent artificial agent. Provides information from the curriculum to the task level.
Information Base		Online reference information (often called an "infobase"), hypertext online help facilities, statistic databases, multimedia databases, and case history databases
Advisor		An interactive expert system, cased-based reasoning system, or coaching facility that guides a user through performing procedures and making decisions
Learning Experiences		CBT or WBT such as interactive tutorials, as well as multimedia training using simulations and scenarios

T H E   E V E N T S
O F   I N S T R U C T I O N

Gagné suggests that learning tasks for intellectual skills can be organized in a hierarchy according to complexity: stimulus recognition, response generation, procedure following, use of terminology, discriminations, concept formation, rule application, and problem solving.

The primary significance of the hierarchy is to identify prerequisites that should be completed to facilitate learning at each level. Prerequisites are identified by doing a task analysis of a learning or training task. Learning hierarchies provide a basis for the sequencing of instruction.

Gagné (1996) suggests nine universal events of instruction that should occur in any instructional context. Cognitive events are in parentheses.

Gaining Attention

The attention of learners, in the sense of alertness for reception of stimuli, is gained by introducing rapid stimulus change. Use attention-getting visuals, videos, events, or sounds. (reception)

Informing Learners of The Objective

When learners comprehend the objective of instruction, they acquire an expectancy that nominally persists throughout the learning process and that is confirmed by feedback when learning is complete. An important aspect of this event may be to connect the learning objective to the learner's motivation. (expectancy)

Stimulating Recall of Prior Learning

New learning is facilitated by integration with previously learned material. Remind the student of prior knowledge relevant to the current lesson (facts, rules, procedures or skills). Show how knowledge is connected, and provide the student with a framework that helps learning and remembering. You might include tests. (retrieval)

Presenting the Content

This is the event in which the new content itself is presented to the learner. Emphasize distinctive features of concepts and critical aspects of rule application. This event can be provided by illustrated lecture, guided discovery, or other means. In practice, this event is often intertwined with the next event: providing learner guidance. You can accomplish the initial presentation of new content, and further elaborations of it, in a variety of ways, some of which facilitate encoding. (selective perception)

Providing Learner Guidance

This event of instruction supports the internal process of encoding and is intended to make the new content as meaningful as possible. Enhance meaningfulness by using concrete examples of abstract terms and concepts, and elaborate each idea by relating it to others already in memory. (semantic encoding)

Eliciting Performance

Now it is time for the learner to demonstrate the learned capability. This event is commonly called "practice." You might use shaping, specialized practice, fading, or backward chaining. (responding)

Providing Feedback

Following practice, there must be communication to the learner about the degree of correctness of the performance. In some cases, feedback may be built in and immediate. You might use corrective or formative feedback that relates to the manner of the performance and gives advice about how to improve. (reinforcement)

Assessing Performance

At some point after practice, additional learner guidance, and corrective feedback, additional performances may be required as an assessment or test, to ensure that the newly learned capability is complete and relatively stable. You might use formal tests, informal assessment, or performance of an exercise. (retrieval)

Enhancing Retention And Transfer

Retention is the ability to reproduce learned behavior after a period of time has elapsed since the performance. Transfer is the ability to use the learned skill in a slightly different, or greatly different, situation from the ones in which it was learned. Inform the learner about similar problem situations, provide additional practice, and put the learner in a transfer situation. (generalization)

Training Implications

• Different instruction is required for different learning outcomes.
• Events of learning operate on the learner in ways that constitute the conditions of learning.
• The specific operations that constitute instructional events are different for each type of learning outcome.
• Learning hierarchies define what intellectual skills are to be learned and a sequence of instruction.
• Inclusion of the nine events, and particularly the tailoring of these events to specific types of learning outcome, greatly enhances training effectiveness.

C O M P O N E N T   D I S P L A Y   T H E O R Y

Merrill's Component Display Theory is based on the same assumption as Gagné’s theory: the assumption that different classes of learning outcomes require different procedures for teaching and assessment.

Component Display Theory is concerned with teaching individual concepts or principles, classifies objectives on two dimensions, and formats instruction to provide learner control.

Component Display Theory is composed of three parts (Merrill, 1983, 1987):

• A performance/content matrix that includes the desired level of student performance (Remember Instance, Remember Generality, Use, and Find) and the type of content (Fact, Concept, Procedure, and Principle)
• Four primary presentation forms: Expository (Rule, Example) and Inquisitory (Recall, Practice)
• A set of prescriptions relating the level of performance and type of content to the presentation forms

Information Types and Information Mapping©

The theory of information types states that all information, regardless of the subject matter, can be classified into categories based on the purpose of the information to the learner. The course developer must determine the purpose through analysis.

Information Mappingİ provides structure, frameworks, process, and modes for the representation of information. While Information Mapping'sİ roots are in text, its concepts can be extended to other expressions or media such as audio, image, and sound. (Gery, 1991; Clark, 1989; Horn, 1989, 1992)

Principles

Instruction will be more effective if all three primary performance forms—remember, use, and generality—are present for the different types of content or information types.

• Primary forms can be presented by either an explanatory or inquisitory learning strategy.
• The sequence of primary forms is not critical provided they are all present.
• Students should be given control over the number of instances or practice items they receive.

I N F O R M A T I O N    T Y P E S

The following table shows an overview of basic information or content types. (Clark, 1989)

Information Type		Definition		Example		When Used
Fact		A statement of data without supporting information that is asserted with certainty		—The wheel base of this car is 5 feet by 3 inches. —The AD,240 command title is "Add a Sales Agent".		When the learner needs statement of data without supporting information
Concept		A group or class of objects, conditions, events, ideas, responses or relations that —have one or more attributes in common —differ from one another in some respect —are designated by a common name		—Acceleration can best be defined as... —The list price is the standard price quoted on goods for sale.		When the learner needs to understand a term, idea or abstraction
Procedure		A set of sequential steps that one person or entity performs to obtain a specified outcome. This includes the decisions that need to be made and the actions that must be carried out as a result of those decisions.		First enter the ship-to customer numbers, then enter a valid ship-to territory.		When the learner needs to know "how to do it"
Principle		A statement that —Tells what should or should not be done such as rules, policies and guidelines, warnings, or cautions —Seems to be true in light of the evidence such as generalizations and theorems —Is unprovable but implied by other statements such as assumptions, axioms, or postulates		The principle of road safety can be stated...		When the learner needs to know what should or should not be done

I M P L I C A T I O N S   F O R   O L A

Instructional models prescribe how combinations of instructional strategy elements should be integrated to produce a course of instruction. Elements can include the use of advance organizers, practice, examples, feedback, sequencing, and other strategies.

These instructional models provide the basis for the taxonomy of learning objects and recommendations for frames and functions.

The combination of Information Types, Component Display Theory, Events of Instruction, and the desired level of student performance work to create the content and instructional tactics to be used within a Web-based learning environment such as OLA.