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Paul McKey - Smart Business Design - Synergy » Blog Archive »

"At the other end of this educational theory spectrum is the idea of instructivism. Instructivism, by this name or any other, has been around for many years and has formed the basis of the American, among others, educational system. Based on behaviorist theories, Instructivism, sometimes referred to as Direct Instruction incorporates a teacher-directed, carefully planned curriculum, with purposeful teaching at its core. It follows two basic assumptions. First, the purpose of instruction is to help the learner understand and interact with the world; and, secondly, learners should be directed by instructors who make the decisions about the content and sequence of the learning (Margules, 1996). The instructors would base these decisions on professional training and scholarship. According to Fosnot, 1996, ". . . the instructivist, or behaviourist, approach is to pre-plan a curriculum by breaking down a subject area (usually seen as a finite body of knowledge) into assumed component parts, and then sequencing these parts into a hierarchy ranging from simple to more complex," (in Malibar & Pountney, 2002). This approach is more of teacher as "sage on the stage," than as a facilitator of learning. Even further, "according to instructivist principles, learning flows in a mostly unidirectional path, proceeding from the knowledgeable authority (teacher), or from instructional content, to the passive learner," (Diaz& Bontenbal, 2000). Not only is the teacher the authority, but the learner is also passive and merely absorbs the content. For students, there is little room for self-discovery and reflection. In instructivism, real world situations are not the models of instruction, nor are there modifications made for individual learning style; the lecture, in its different forms for primary, secondary and tertiary, is the primary mode of content delivery. Students are aware of expected learning outcomes, and outcomes are easily assessable. Further, students are rewa

This is a practical article describing a method to encourage teachers to USE technology. It found that most teachers don't find tech training helpful as it focusses on HOW to use technology not how to INTEGRATE it into teaching and learning.

A paper discussing recent trends in public funding for VET and TAFE and the implications for future funding of government targets to improve the skills of the Australian population Prepared by Michael Long Monash University -ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training for The Australian Education Union

A guide to creating learning design for VET was developed by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. The guide has been designed for learning designers in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector, seeking to plan and design online learning materials. The purpose of this guide is to provide designers with a series of model learning designs that they can use to plan the learning environments. The guide cannot capture all learning and design variables but provides information that is intended to inform the learning designer on how best these can be considered and dealt with.

From 2009 the Framework Toolbox business activity gives greater emphasis to supporting the capability of the national training sector to develop, customise and use e-learning content by making available the tools, guidelines and knowledge that has evolved from the ongoing success of the Toolbox initiative.

Had a watch very good intro. Captivate is one inch thick one mile deep. Adobe Captivate specific training would be good for TAFE NSW to quickly get up to speed with the possibilities.