Research has shown that when Merrill's First Principles of Instruction are used as part of an instructional strategy, student learning increases. Several articles describe these principles of instruction, including specific methods for implementing this theory. However, because teachers and designers often have little time to design instruction,…

The School Improvement Specialist Project prepared seven modules. School improvement specialists, as defined by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory at Edvantia, are change agents who work with schools to help them improve in the following areas so as to increase student achievement. These modules are intended to provide training materials for…

Discussion of human-computer interaction (HCI) as an essential part of the design of computing systems focuses on incorporating HCI into university computing courses. HCI training needs for various career profiles are given; and an outline of the contents of the Open University postgraduate module on HCI is appended. (nine references) (LRW)

Discusses the possibilities of using situated learning theory in distance education and describes the instructional design of a course on soil and the environment offered at the Open University of the Netherlands that incorporates situated learning. The use of interactive videodisk is described. (Contains 49 references.) (LRW)

Reviews several German computer assisted instruction (CAI) programs and describes an experiment in CAI to discover if immediate reinforcement in self-pacing would enable the students to perform better on the final examination. The experiment was carried out with two homogeneous sections of second-semester students of German in high school.…

Examines recent developments in library and information science (LIS) in the United Kingdom. Highlights include a historical perspective; restructuring and reorganization; recruitment; modular courses; user needs; the transfer of LIS skills; new areas of LIS curriculum; distance education; and future concerns, including recruitment and links with…

Recent political and economic developments in Slovenia, especially its accession to the European Union in 2004, have led to a significant reappraisal of the geography curriculum in higher education, and particularly those elements dealing with the teaching of soils. Physical geography, and especially soils geography, has long been an important…

Describes a cognitive approach to designing instruction that uses schema theory and illustrates an instructional application of schema theory using a self-instructional interactive videodisc to teach a medical skill. Guidelines for instructional design and development are discussed, including knowledge acquisition, contextual clues, and learning…