Design tools used for instructional planning can be described in terms of inputs, outputs, major components, and their interrelations. The outputs are course length; student flow; and requirements for resources, such as facilities, material, personnel, and dollars. The inputs are the teaching institution, learners for whom the course was designed,…

This chapter discusses General Systems Theory as it applies to education, classrooms, innovations, and instructional design. The principles of equifinality, open and closed systems, the individual as the key system, hierarchical structures, optimization, stability, cooperation, and competition are discussed, and their relationship to instructional…

The literature on curriculum comprises three areas. The first is made up of the articles that advocate, describe, criticize, discuss, or pontificate. These articles contain little by way of discerning theoretical analysis and nothing by way of persuasive empirical evidence and are not considered here, though their influence on actual school…

Educators often fail to implement improved teaching systems because they lack a method of choosing among instructional alternatives. The Rand Coporation is developing for the Air Force a means--called Method of Designing Instructional Alternatives (MODIA)--whereby instructors can select a preferred instructional system. Using MODIA, one begins by…

This paper presents a summary of some recent engineering research in education and identifies some research areas with high payoff potential. The underlying assumption is that a school is a system with a set of subsystems which is potentially susceptible to analysis, design, and eventually some sort of optimization. This assumption leads to the…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…