5 Principles of Instructional Design

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, we're going to look at the five principles of instructional design. And for today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Albert Einstein which states that "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."

Now, by the end of the lesson today, you will be able to identify and discuss the five important principles that are common to most instructional design theories. So let's go ahead and take a look at those five principles of instructional design.

Now, when we look at these principles, it's good to remember that the researcher M. David Merrill studied instructional design theories. And in his studies, he determined that there are five major principles that are common to almost all instructional design theories.

These are known as Merrill's first principles of instruction. And that's what we're going to look at today. It's important that we consider these when designing instruction. And specifically, when we look at that instruction which is competency based, we want to look at these five principles.

So the first major principle identified by Merrill is that students learn best when they are actively engaged. Specifically, when he focused in on this, he looked at student engagement when it comes to real-world problems.

So we as teachers want to make sure that as we are designing our instruction, we're providing students with a lot of those open-ended questions, those problems that are messy. They are not easy. They do not have a right or wrong answer always but that students can then apply to their future learning.

So this not only provides for the transfer of learning where students are really extending what they have learned in the classroom into different contexts. But it also helps students to use what they've learned, their emerging competence, within these different areas as an effective approach to answering or coming up with possible solutions to some of these really messy conversations. Getting those students actively engaged helps to assure that they are really solidifying that learning.

The second major principle is that students learn best when that existing knowledge is activated prior to introducing new information. What we're looking at here is the idea that we as teachers need to lay the foundation for students before we just jump into new information.

You want to make sure that when you're introducing some of these new competencies and new units that students have time to kind of ease into it, as opposed to going right from the hot tub to the cold end, that you are giving students the time to ease into it. Thus, they can be more open to that learning. And also, ideally as you do this, you are going back up to that first principle and getting them actively engaged.

The third major principle is that students learn best when knowledge is demonstrated for them. This does not take students out of the driver's seat. But students do benefit when they are shown what they are going to learn. Rather than me telling them what they're going to learn or having them read some of those objectives, really showing students examples is beneficial.

Also, student work can be that example. And digital tools can also play a really important part in this where students can look at many different ways that they could approach that content through simulations, through demonstrations, and through examining the way in which they will be able to use what they're learning then beyond the classroom.

That leads right into the fourth major principle which is that students learn best when they're able to apply new knowledge in active learning tasks. So once they've been given that knowledge, don't just end there. Allow students the opportunity to get involved with that rather than passively recalling what they know within more of a traditional educational assessment.

So what this means is really looking at assessments that are more performance based where students are asked to develop a product, or create a performance, or really work collaboratively to develop a way to demonstrate what they've learned rather than just sitting down answering questions on a test or filling in a bubble.

The fifth and final principle of instructional design according to Merrill is that students learn best when that new knowledge is integrated into the student's world.

So as we wrap all of this up, really focusing in on the idea that students are able to personally apply the new knowledge and skills to other areas of their life. When we talk about that, we're looking at a couple of different elements.

First, you want to make sure that we're focusing in on the idea of that zone of proximal development so what the learner can do with help and what the learner can do without help. Oftentimes, it's at this moment where we are asking the learner to go from what they can do with help to what they can do without help, really making that transition.

Also, it's important that oftentimes, this application of their knowledge can reflect on the learning that they've done before this class as well as ideally impact what they will do in the future. Sometimes, demonstrating these within the community or for the public is one really good way of helping to show their mastery to everyone else.

The last major element that I want to make sure that we are paying attention to here, especially when we kind of look at that idea that they are demonstrating their knowledge, that can tie circularly back to the idea that students learn best when knowledge is demonstrated for them. The student then can become the teacher.

This is very closely tied to what we call MKO or More Knowledgeable Other. This is the idea that someone has a better understanding of a particular task or concept. This isn't always the teacher. The student can be this MKO for other students continuing that cycle of solid instructional design within competency-based education.

Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, you are able to identify the five important principles that are common to most instructional design theories. Now that you have a moment for reflection, I would like you to think about Merrill's five principles of instructional design. What elements of this instructional design do you currently use in your own instructional design? And what elements do you think would be the first ones that you would include as you begin to re-evaluate?

For more information on how to apply what you've learned in this video, please view the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. The additional resources section includes hyperlinks that are useful for application of the course material as well as a brief description of each resource available to you.