From Principles of Learning to Strategies for Instruction-with Workbook Companion: A Needs-Based Focus on High School Adolescents

From Principles of Learning to Strategies for Instruction

Part One

The purpose of this book is to help educators and training developers to improve the quality of their instruction. Unlike other available works, the text is not limited to a particular theoretical position. Nor is it like many of the instructional design texts, which ignore the learning literature. Rather, it draws upon any and all of those research-based principles regardless of learning theory, which suggest heuristics to guide instructional strategies. The approach of the authors is unique in that they develop a framework or model taxonomy for tasks, through which the principles of learning can be related to particular learning processes, suggesting distinctive strategies for specific instructional tasks. The authors present a four-stage model that includes acquisition, automaticity, near term transfer, and far term transfer.

Workbook Companion

Part Two

In this Workbook Companion, the strategies presented in the original book are expanded by supplying practical and specific strategies to implement of a variety of other subject matters. These strategies are based on the needs which the authors currently see and cite in existing educational systems. Each chapter concentrates on providing recommended instructional strategies and practical exercises for a specific target group: high school age adolescents. Contributors supply strategies in the different learning domains including Cognitive, Psychomotor, Affect, and Interpersonal, and each individual is responsible for training teachers, developing and/or evaluating curricula for such training, and educating high school students through the development and implementation of curricula.

Developed for both new and experienced teachers developing curricula for high-school adolescents, the goal of the Workbook Companion is to provide those in the field of education with strategies to incorporate each of the four domains into their lesson plans, regardless of subject area.

The premise of From Principles of learning to Strategies for Instruction with Workbook Companion is that, in order to provide strategies for instruction, it is both appropriate and necessary to draw upon empirically based principles, or heuristics, from psychological literature on the learning process. The descriptive laws of psychology provide a foundation for the intrinsic relationship between cognitive development, learning, meta-cognition, and other psychological organizing principles and serve as the basis for prescriptions of instructional strategies. The fields of psychology, training, and education are necessarily interrelated, and practitioners/developers of training and education are suggesting new psychological research possibilities based on evidence from their own fields. To continue building effective instructional strategies, the reciprocal relationship between psychology and learning must be recognized and explored.

The first part of this volume is a reprint of the original book, which highlights principles of learning which have been synthesized from research literature in psychology. Upon that foundation, the authors develop a taxonomy for tasks and recommend strategies for instruction in acquisition, automaticity, near term transfer, and far term transfer.

The second part of this volume is a newly-developed Companion Workbook focusing solely on developing instructional strategies for high school level adolescents. Written by individuals with expertise in training teachers, developing curriculum, and educating high school students, each chapter uses the four tier model from the first section to develop practical and specific strategies to implement in a variety of content areas.

Intended for both new and experienced teachers working with high school adolescents, the goal of the Workbook Companion is to provide educators with strategies to incorporate each of the four cognitive domains into their lesson plans, regardless of subject area.