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Instructional Design

5 Star Instruction — Dr. M. David Merrill

Dr. M. David Merrill, Professor of Instructional Technology at the Utah State University, has recently presented the "Five Star Instruction" model for effective design. It is a problem-based instruction model, and offers a comprehensive, yet simple, device for the evaluation process.

Dr. Merrill suggests that the most effective learning environments are those that are problem-based and involve the learner in four distinct phases of instruction.

  Merrill (2002)

• Problem Principle — Learning is facilitated when learners are engaged in solving real-world problems
  • The learner is engaged at the problem or task level, not just the operation or action level
  • The learner solves a progression of problems. This promotes skill development, and meaningful feedback and reinforcement to occur.
  • The learner is guided to an explicit comparison of problems.
     
• Activation Principle — Learning is facilitated when existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge
  • The learner is directed to recall, relate, describe, or apply knowledge from relevant past experience that can be used as a foundation for the new knowledge.
  • The learner is provided with relevant experience that can be used as a foundation for the new knowledge.
     
• Demonstration Principle — Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is demonstrated to the learner
  • The Learner is shown rather than merely told.
  • The demonstration is consistent with the learning goal.
  • The learner is shown multiple representations.
  • The learner is directed to explicitly compare alternative representations.
  • The use of media play a relevant instructional role.
     
• Application Principle — Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is applied by the learner (e.g., guided and unguided practice)
  • The learner is required to use his or her new knowledge to solve problems.
  • The problem-solving activity is consistent with the learning goal.
  • The learner is shown how to detect and correct errors.
  • The learner is guided in problem-solving by appropriate coaching that is gradually withdrawn.
     
• Integration Principle — Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is integrated into the learner's world
  • The learner is required to demonstrate his or her new knowledge or skill.
  • The learner can reflect-on, discuss, and defend his or her new knowledge or skill.
  • The learner can create, invent, and explore new and personal ways to use his or her new knowledge or skill

See M. David Merrill, Five Star Instruction (2003); and First Principles of Instruction (2002.)

Principles of Problem-based Instruction seek to make the instructional context relevant, focused on meaningful skills and therefore effective for transfer-of-learning. Availability of "just in time" content through Learning Objects allows the problem presentation to be highly personalized to the learning needs of an individual. Increasing problem difficult makes the learning more challenging, engaging and effective. Using "scaffolding" that decreases the amount of help (prompting, guidance) over time allows the final skill level to be elicited by naturalistic cues.

Problem solving also creates an explicit opportunity for metacognitive skills to be practiced and taught (i.e., awareness and control of one's own cognitive processing, including setting goals, monitoring progress and adjusting strategies as needed).

Organizing instruction around learner problem-solving mobilizes associations with previous learning. It creates encoding and retrieval hooks upon which successful transfer-of-learning depend. It establishes a motivational context essential for the adult learner.
 

Principles of Problem-based Instruction

In earlier stages of his work, Dr. Merrill offered the following four cardinal principles of instruction:

• The Cognitive Structure Principle — The purpose of instruction is to promote the development of that cognitive structure that is most consistent with the desired learned performance.
   
• The Elaboration Principle — The purpose of instruction is to promote incremental elaboration of the most appropriate cognitive structure to enable the learner to achieve increased generality and complexity in the desired learned performance.
   
• The Learner Guidance Principle — The purpose of instruction is to promote that active cognitive processing that best enables the learner to use the most appropriate cognitive structure in a way consistent with the desired learned performance.
   
• The Practice Principle — The purpose of instruction is to provide the dynamic, ongoing opportunity for monitored practice that requires the learner to demonstrate the desired learned performance, or a close approximation of it, while the instructor monitors the activity and intervenes with feedback both as to result and process.

See M. David Merrill, "The New Component Design Theory: Instructional design for courseware authoring." Instructional Science, (1987) 16, 19-34; and Knowledge objects and mental models (2000), in D. A. Wiley (Ed.). The Instructional Use of Learning Objects (in press)

"Pebble in the Pond" Design

Merrill's latest innovation is a model of instructional design which is focused on achieving "problem-based" instruction. This model is called a "A Pebble-in-the-Pond Model for Instructional Design" (isi.org, August 2002).

Components of Instruction

A major contribution to instructional design is to be found in Merrill's model of component information and portrayal. This model is called a "Components of Instruction: Toward a Theoretical Tool for Instructional Design" (2002). It is based on his earlier work in "Instructional Transaction Theory: Knowledge Relationships among Processes, Entities and Activities" (1993, Educational Technology, 33, 5-16.)

The following table is a synthesis adapted from Dr. Merrill's articles:

Four Learning Architectures

5 Star Instruction

Learning Theory