The Learning Source: Definition and Instructional Strategies
The term "learning source" encompasses a wide array of materials, tools, and environments that facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and skills. These resources are integral to the learning process, assisting both instructors in delivering effective instruction and students in achieving their educational goals. This article explores the definition of learning sources, their diverse forms, and strategies for their effective utilization in instructional design.
Defining Learning Sources
Learning sources are educational and training materials designed to support the teaching and learning process. Traditionally, this definition might have been limited to textbooks and classroom settings. However, the modern understanding of learning sources is far broader, encompassing a vast range of online and offline resources. These resources aim to make learning more enjoyable, engaging, and interactive.
Types of Learning Sources
The variety of learning sources available today is extensive, catering to diverse learning styles and instructional needs. Here are some examples of learning sources:
- Animations: Successive drawings that create an illusion of movement when shown in sequence. The animations visually and dynamically presents concepts, models, processes, and/or phenomena in space or time. Users can control their pace and movement through the material typically, but they cannot determine and/or influence the initial conditions or their outcomes/results.
- Collections: A meaningful organization of learning resources such as web sites, documents, apps, etc.
- Development Tools: Software development applications platforms for authoring technology-based resources (e.g.
- Drill and Practice: Requires users to respond repeatedly to questions or stimuli presented in a variety of sequences.
- ePortfolio: A collection of electronic materials assembled and managed by a user. These may include text, electronic files, images, multimedia, blog entries, and links. E-portfolios are both demonstrations of the user’s abilities and platforms for self-expression, and, if they are online, they can be maintained dynamically over time.
- Illustration/Graphic: Visual concepts, models, and/or processes (that are not photographic images) that visually present concepts, models, and/or processes that enable students to learn skills or knowledge.
- Learning Object Repository: A searchable database of at least 100 online resources that is available on the Internet and whose search result displays an ordered hit list of items with a minimum of title metadata.
- Photographic Image - Instructional: Photos or images of real people, places or things that visually presents concepts, processes and/or phenomena that enable students to learn skills or knowledge.
- Reference Material: Material with no specific instructional objectives and similar to that found in the reference area of a library.
- Simulation: Approximates a real or imaginary experience where users’ actions affect the outcomes of tasks they have to complete.
- Tutorial: Users navigate through a set of scaffolded learning activities designed to meet stated learning objectives, structured to impart specific concepts or skills, and organized sequentially to integrate conceptual presentation, demonstration, practice and testing.
- Online Resources: Videos and other online materials offer flexibility and accessibility, allowing students to learn at their own pace and from any location.
Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction
Robert Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction provide a framework for designing effective learning experiences. These events address the mental conditions necessary for learning and can be used to structure instructional content. By implementing these events, educators can create engaging and meaningful lessons.
The Nine Events
- Gain attention: Capture students' interest at the beginning of the lesson.
- Inform learners of objectives: Clearly state the learning objectives or outcomes for the course and individual lessons to help students understand what they are expected to learn and do.
- Stimulate recall of prior learning: Help students activate prior knowledge relevant to the new material.
- Present the content: Use strategies to present and cue lesson content to provide more effective instruction. Present multiple versions of the same content (e.g.
- Provide learning guidance: Advise students of strategies to aid them in learning content and of resources available. Provide instructional support as needed - i.e. Model varied learning strategies - e.g.
- Elicit performance: Facilitate student activities - e.g. Provide formative assessment opportunities - e.g. Design effective quizzes and tests - i.e.
- Provide feedback: Confirmatory feedback informs the student that they did what they were supposed to do.
- Assess performance: Implement a variety of assessment methods to provide students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate proficiency.
- Enhance retention and transfer: Avoid isolating course content. Have students convert information learned in one format into another format (e.g. verbal or visuospatial). For instance, requiring students to create a concept map to represent connections between ideas (Halpern & Hakel, 2003, p.
Integrating Gagné’s Events with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Using Gagné’s nine events in conjunction with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy can further enhance instructional design. Bloom's Taxonomy provides a hierarchy of cognitive skills, from basic recall to higher-order thinking. By aligning instructional activities with specific levels of the taxonomy, educators can create learning experiences that promote deeper understanding and critical thinking.
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Practical Application of Gagné's Events
To promote deep learning, clearly articulate your lesson goals, use your specific goals to guide your instructional design, and align learning activities to lesson goals (Halpern & Hakel, 2003, p. Gagné’s nine events of instruction can help you build a framework to prepare and deliver instructional content while considering and addressing conditions for learning. Ideally, you should prepare course goals and learning objectives before implementing the nine events-the goals and objectives will help situate the events in their proper context. The nine events of instruction can then be modified to fit both the content and students’ level of knowledge.
Financial Considerations
In some contexts, such as vocational training, financial policies related to instruction are relevant. For example, class fees and charges paid to a school for goods and services (instruction) that have not been provided by the school must be fully refunded. A student may cancel an agreement at no penalty if instruction has not yet begun. If a student withdraws or stops attending after instruction has begun, the school may retain tuition liability as of the student's last date of physical attendance. Specific refund policies may vary depending on the institution and accrediting body.
Key Terms
- Period of Financial Obligation: The training period for which a student is legally obligated to pay (e.g., month, term, or session), which may be less than the total period of enrollment if tuition is charged in smaller increments.
- No Show: A student who never attends class after enrolling and does not inform the institution.
- Date of Determination (DOD): The date the student gives notice of withdrawal to the institution, or the date the institution administratively withdraws the student.
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