Priorities for Evaluating Instructional Materials

By: Prof. Karen Dennis Stewart

Priority area: Learning

Research-based information will show what works across disciplines along with few particular strategies for selected subjects and students. But, two special learning strategies deserve special attention:

Ø  The expertise reversal effect. This refers to finding in several studies that students who possess high levels of expertise in a subject do NOT benefit from the same strategies that work for average students that possess a low expertise.

Ø  Powerful resistance to learning, which is due to students’ misconceptions in a subject area.

Motivational strategies:

Ø  Positive expectations

Ø  Feedback                                                      

Ø  Appearance

Setting Positive Expectations

Factors that contribute to learning climate:

Ø  Friendly, attentive, and encouraging communication

Ø  Student collaboration assignments and group projects

Ø  Students communication and presentations

Ø  Informative feedback on students progress

(Fisher & Baird, 2005; Kassem, 2006; Reio & Crim, 2006)

Feedback

Students are motivated by informative feedback about correctness, incorrectness, and how to improve what they are learning (Fisher & Baird, 2005; Rei & Crim, 2006).

Appearance

Materials should have features that make them appealing.

Teaching a Few “Big Ideas”

“Big Ideas” or “major themes” provide

Ø  Focus for students and

Ø  Completeness.

Focus for Students

“Big ideas” include major themes, core concepts and principles, or a few “powerful ideas” for the subject being studied, they help students organize what they are learning, follow the sequence of learning, and make sense of the information, facts, and concepts. (Ornstein, 1992).

 Materials organized around "core thinking skills" could be one approach to "major themes" for a course, such as:

• definding problems
• setting goals
• gathering, observing, formulating questions about information
• encoding, recalling
• comparing, classifiying, ordering, representing
• identifying attributes and components, relationships and patterns, main ideas, errors
• ifering, predicting, elaborating, summarizing, restructuring
• evaluating

Instructional materials must contain clear statements of information and aoutcomes.
instructional materials nust include guidance and support tohelp students safely and successfully become more independant learners and thinkers.
Guidance and support most often come from a good teacher, but instructional materials can support or interfere. The literature has estblished the various modalities of learneing styles, so it makes sense to include a variety of apporiate activities.


Adaptability of Guidance abd Suppot


Guidance and support are not "one size fits all". For particular subjects areas, certain types of guidance and support may be listed as having high importance.


The type of guidance and support that have been efective in supporting student learning include:

• goals at the begining of an assignment;
• organized activities and routines;
• explicit organizational schemes and explanations;
• examples of finished products, sample problems and models.

Targeted Instructional and Assessment Strategies

Instructional maerials should include the instructional and assessment strategies known to be successful for teaching the learning outcomes targeted in the curriculum requirements. successfully teaching the targeted outcomes depends upon alignment of strtegies and completeness of strategies.