This model has its roots in the career-long search of the writers to find the best teaching strategies. The challenges presented by the recent emphasis on standards and teaching to standards has focused and framed this search. Recent advances in computer technology have provided the means for presenting and integrating the theories and conceptual frameworks on which good teaching is based.
The writers do not represent a particular conceptualization of teaching. We are probably synthesizers in that we draw on the works of a variety of researchers, some of whom are synthesizers themselves. Also, much of what is imbedded in the models that follow is no longer consciously traceable to anyone person or theory. For that reason we present two groups of writers. The first group of writers includes those who have exerted much general, but not traceable influence that can be attributed, and the second group includes those whose writing is clearly attributable.
Those who have had broad influence are Nathanial Gage, an early “instructional theorist”, Jack Hough, David Ausebel and the concept of “advance organizer,” Madeline Hunter, Bruce Joyce and the Models of Teaching series, and Robert Gagne and his information processing model from The Conditions of Learning and Theory of Instruction, 1985.
The contributions of the second group of writers include several who contributed chapters to Charles Reigeluth’s Instructional-Design Theories and Models, Vol.2, 1999. These chapters are by David Perkins and Chris Unger, “Teaching and Learning for Understanding”, and Richard Mayer, “Designing Instruction for Constructivist Learning”. Also important was an article in the American Educational Research Journal in Spring, 2000 by Graham Nuthall, “The Anatomy of Memory in the Classroom: Understanding How Students Acquire Memory Processes from Classroom Activities in Science and Social Studies Units”. Finally, Richard Prawat’s article in Review of Educational Research, Spring 1989, “Promoting Access to Knowledge, Strategy, and Disposition in Students: A Research Synthesis”, which lays out a framework for processing information that had great influence on the model used in this project, especially the importance of “connecting and reflecting”.
On the technology side, we take a pragmatic approach that does not espouse any particular instructional theory. While many current educational technology theorists seem to work from a social constructivist point of view with emphasis on project-based, discover learning supported by technology, we believe that technology can be used in powerful ways to support all types of classrooms, pedagogies, and cognitive skills. Our suggstions for using technology are based on our own classroom experience as well as our ongoing work with educational professionals in both the K-12 and higher education community.
The research into the use of educational technology is spotty at best. One recent study--"A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Teaching and Learning With Technology on Student Outcomes" conducted by Hersh C. Waxan, Meng-Fen lin, and Georgett M. Michko at the University of Houston (December 2003)--lamented the lack of quality quantitative research in this area, but did conclude that teaching and learning with technology had a small, positive,significant effect on student outcomes when compared to traditional classrooms. This study is available online at http://www.ncrel.org/tech/effects2/index.html. For those interested in other research concerning technology in education, we refer you to the Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology (CARET), located online at http://caret.iste.org. This clearinghouse for research provides summaries of individual studies as well as research-based answers to general questions about the use of technology in education.