The discussion of the critical analysis of instructional design is framed within Habermas' three fundamental human interests: technical, practical, and emancipatory. The primary goal of this paper is to explore alternative approaches for instructional designers' reflection and critique. Ultimately, this reflection and critique should shed light on…

Comments on the preceding article which examined elaboration theory and offered suggestions for updating it to reflect new knowledge. Highlights include the simplifying conditions method; internal versus external knowledge structures; connectionism and authentic tasks; content structure as organizing structure; ill-structured domains; and…

In this article, the authors comment on Eric Fox's description of functional contextualism which makes several contributions to instructional design and technology (IDT). They agree that functional contextualism does indeed provide some "theoretical clarity and philosophical cohesion," not just for constructivism, but also for understanding…

Offers a response to the previous article, discussing school reforms and restructuring; educational technology; hyperlearning; and future learning environments. (Contains five references.) (LRW)

In higher education, a university is typically loosely coupled with its suprasystems, but its various schools or colleges tend to be tightly coupled with the university, as are departments with their respective schools or colleges. Similarly, in the corporate sector, a training department is typically tightly coupled with the company management…

Discussion of school reform activity focuses on criticism of a previously published article that challenged all school restructuring efforts based on the belief that advances in technology renders school obsolete. Topics addressed include problems with current public education; existing learning technologies; and speculations about future…