ICI Academic║Professor Zhong Qiquan's new book - Instructional Design

Instructional Design, written by ICI honorary director Pro. Zhong Qiquan, has been officially published by East China Normal University Press.

Author

Zhong Qiquan, a tenured professor at East China Normal University, honorary Director of the Institute of Curriculum and Institution, East China Normal University, member of the Department of Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education (and convenor of the Department of Education and Psychology of the Ministry of Education), member of the National Expert Advisory Committee on Curriculum Materials for Basic Education, member of the Expert Committee on Teacher Education of the Ministry of Education. Editor in chief of Global Education Perspectives.

Brief Introduction

"Instructional design" is an indispensable topic in teacher education and teacher training. Professor Zhong Qiquan's new work "Instructional Design" focuses on the frontier research of international instructional design and aims to sort out the clues of the development of instructional design based on theory and practice. It expounds the recent representative conceptual framework and some typical practices that are valuable for our country's education. It also expresses insights into the modern topics of instructional design. After reading this book, It’s believed that teachers can work out more "effective, efficient and engaging" teaching design in a predictable way.

Introduction: where does instructional design lead?

"Learning" is the cornerstone of the future

The future is an era of thinking power, and learning is the cornerstone of future possibilities. Entering the 21st century, brain science has brought new light to the design of "ideal learning". The 21st century is known as the "Era of Brain Science". Related research focuses on the following four goals - understanding the brain, protecting the brain, developing the brain, and cultivating the brain, so as to clarify the development of children's brains and help children's development and education. The research on brain science and education, that is, the research on cultivating the brain, is neither pure brain science nor pure pedagogy, but a brand-new interdisciplinary field that integrates studies from fields of brain science, pedagogy, psychology, sociology, behavior, medicine, physiology, linguistics, etc. From the perspective of brain science and education research, the so-called education is the process of controlling and supplementing the external stimuli necessary for the construction of the brain's neural circuit network. In this way, "learning", which is closely related to education, is regarded as "the process of constructing neural circuits with the help of external stimuli from the environment". That is to say, "the nature or direction of the constructed neural circuit is determined by learning, so education can be regarded as conscious, planned, and organized activities to control and supplement external stimuli from the environment." One of the assertions made by Brain Science and Education research is that the brain can either facilitate learning or limit (inhibit) it. Therefore, elucidating the neuronal mechanisms that facilitate, limit, or even inhibit learning will not only aid in the treatment of children with learning disabilities, but also in the development of effective school curriculum and instruction.
The progress of child development research shows that early childhood is the proper age for developing intelligence. When children receive high-quality stimulation, the transmission cells (synapses) of the brain will increase and promote the development of the brain. The period during which synaptic concentrations are formed is called the "critical period" (receptive period). Once the age-appropriate period for this ability is missed, it will be limited no matter how great efforts are made . Therefore, Japanese brain scientist, Nariyuki Hayashi, believes that "education is brain education". Brain science reveals that brain nerve cells have four instincts: seeking survival, seeking knowledge, seeking partners, and seeking communication. Authentic education must begin by focusing on cultivating children's "quality", rather than simply accumulating knowledge. The "athletic brain" research has confirmed that sports are not only about improving mental preparation, but also directly affect learning at the cellular level, improving the brain's ability to record and analyze new information. Athletics is an essential element that supports the learning function of the brain. The key to determining an individual's "brain power" (academic power) is not study time, but physical strength. The most important characteristic of the brain is "neural plasticity". Doing sports increases 35% of the brain's nerve growth factor; it enables children to develop their basic academic abilities (reading, writing, and arithmetic skills); and their IQs are also improved. That's because sports involve maintaining a balance of neurotransmitters that involve thinking and emotion and neurochemicals. Once the balance is maintained, it can change your entire life. Today's learning science, especially the development of brain science, breaks through the shackles of traditional exam-oriented education and provides a solid theoretical support for the social constructionism teaching.

Learner-centered Instructional Design

A common problem in the routine instructional design tasks of teachers in our country is that the teaching tasks are simply attributed to "the giving and receiving of knowledge", which is the Instructionism revealed by the learning scientist R.K. Sawyer (2006). In this this Instructionism, knowledge consists of "facts about a correct solution and steps to it," and the purpose of schooling is to fascinate students with these facts and steps. Knowing these facts and procedures, the teacher's job is to impart them to the students. Students start with relatively simple facts and steps, and gradually develop complex learning. The standard and definition of simplicity and complexity, and the appropriate matching of teaching materials are largely determined by the educational administration and subject experts. The so-called success of school education is to enable students to master as many of these facts and steps as possible and participate in the competition for exams. Obviously, the Instructionism can only cultivate excellent "memorizers" at best, and cannot cultivate innovative talents needed in the new era, which is against the trend of the development of the times.

In today's information age, the concept of education has shifted from "teacher-centered" to "learner-centered" teaching paradigm. According to the definition of McCombs (B. L. McCombs, 1997), the so-called "learner-centered" refers to the standpoint that all learners can obtain the best knowledge that can most effectively promote the highest "motivation, learning, and achievement". Therefore, the following elements need to be combined-focus on each learner (genetic diversity, experience, insight, background, hobbies, abilities, needs); focus on learning (acquire the best knowledge of how "learning" occurs). The main feature of the information age that is different from the industrial age is that holism (synthesis of topics) replaces subdivision (segmentation of topics). It not only focuses on "disciplinary literacy", but also emphasizes "interdisciplinary literacy".

Reigeluth (C. M. Reigeluth, 2017) advocated the five instructional designs of "learner-centered education". First, literacy-based instructional design - learners' progress should be based on learning progress, not learning time. This emphasizes not only qualities such as temperament (attitude, value, morality, ethics) and emotional development, but also the foundation of achievement, including the learning progress of achievement, evaluation of achievement-based learners, and achievement-based learning records. Second, subject problem-centered teaching design——teaching should be centered on the achievement of authentic problems, including projects and problems, information gathering, and learning by doing. However, to accelerate learning and stimulate motivation, teachers must provide scaffolding. The so-called "scaffolding" here means that the difficulty of the task must be adjusted, neither too difficult nor too easy. At the same time, the corresponding information and guidance necessary for learners to complete the subject should be provided as well. Third, teaching design that suits the learners—in order to maximize learning, the design of topics should be in line with the individual characteristics of learners, which vary from person to person, and long-term and short-term goals for teaching are set up; - Topic selection, collaboration, self-regulation, scaffolding, and evaluation are suitable for learners. Fourth, the revolution of roles—to seek the role transformation of teachers, students and technology. The transformation of the teacher's role is manifested in supporting learners' goal setting, supporting learners' own design and selection of teaching topics, promoting the implementation of topics, supporting learning and performance evaluation, and so on. The transformation of the student's role is manifested as an active learner and self-adjusting collaborator, or a learner and an instructor; the transformation of the role of technology refers to the preservation of learning records as a tool to provide learners with the ability to formulate a tool for to guide learning and enable evaluation of deep learning and learning status. Fifth, the reform of the curriculum - the curriculum should be expanded and reconstructed. The true "learner-centered" paradigm should not only pay attention to the cognitive and physical development of learners, but also must pay attention to the important aspects of each learner including emotional, social and personality development. This requires the reconstruction of interdisciplinary courses to achieve "effective thinking, effective action, effective relationship building, and effective achievement".

At the heart of "Learner Center" is the belief that each individual understands and interprets information and experiences in their own way. Whether it is innate DNA or acquired "experience", each has its own uniqueness. Therefore, there are differences in the individuals’ ways of reception, perception and thinking. The theoretical basis of this belief is cognitivism, constructivism, and anthropocentrism or cognitive theories such as information processing theory, schema theory, and mental model, which provide each learner with information based on existing experience and knowledge as well as the basis for processing information in their own styles. Constructivism is based on the belief that "knowledge does not exist outside the learner, but is constructed subjectively and individually", which has become the theoretical basis of learner-centered education. The constructivism of J. Piaget and L. Vygotsky advocates that when learners participate in learning-oriented social communication, they achieve balance and knowledge construction through experiencing, agreement, assimilation and adaptation. Therefore, instructional design should support learners' deep engagement in rich conversations about the implications of authentic topics that facilitate learning for each learner. C. Rogers, a representative figure of anthropocentrism, advocated that the role of the therapist is not only to be able to discover the ideal self based on the expectations of others, but also to guide learners to fully develop their potential abilities.

Teaching is a process of knowledge construction rather than pure knowledge transfer. The "teacher-centered" teaching under the background of my country's exam-oriented education advocates that everything is taken care of by teachers. Teachers speak and students listen. Students are just containers for passively receiving information and knowledge. This is full of "indoctrination teaching". The famous Austrian children's art educator Franz Cizek criticized the advocacy of mechanical and uniform school education, believing that it violated the laws of nature and human nature. He said "The most beautiful things in the creating of the child are his “mistakes.” The more a child’s work is full of these individual mistakes the more wonderful it is. And the more a teacher removes them from the child’s work, the duller, more desolate and impersonal it becomes." The essence of learning is "inquiry". Either the "subject" or "interdisciplinary" teaching practice, as a way of learning, is "inquiry learning". In this sense, instructional design is a study that seeks the possibility of "inquiry learning". The new instructional design model trends such as "project learning", " affection education" and "flipped classroom" are worthy of praise, because they are making every student a "subject of learning"—not only focusing on " low-level cognitive ability” but also “higher-level cognitive ability”, “subject literacy” but also “interdisciplinary literacy”, “cognitive ability” but also “non-cognitive ability”.

Compared with the "teacher-centered" instructional design, the "literacy-based" instructional design is the unit design of student learning activities, that is, how to make students participate in the journey of knowledge construction and problem solving. In short, the former refers to the teacher's "teaching", and the latter refers to the student's "learning". Borrowing from Sato Gaku, the former is designed based on the "step-step" approach of "goal-achievement-evaluation", while the latter is designed based on the "mountain-climbing" approach of "theme-inquiry-expression". The teaching design of "literacy-based" focuses on organizing activities of "Explore", "Express" and "Exchange", which are the so-called "3E activities". This instructional design has the following basic features:


1. Authenticity—emphasis on learning in real situations. Students obtain meaningful learning, and then construct their own knowledge.
2. Autonomy—students learn in an active, enjoyable, and interested way.
3. Motivation—teachers use motivation and feedback skills to stimulate students' motivation and interest in learning and make them actively participate in learning activities.
4. Challenging— students face, accept, and undertake challenges, and learn satisfactory and successful experiences.
5. Cooperative— a good atmosphere of social interaction in the teaching process is established. Students are encouraged to cooperate with each other, and achieve teaching tasks.
6. Reflective— students are encouraged to think critically through various situations or questions, so as to understand the reasons and solutions behind the problems, and at the same time to reflect on themselves and continue to improve their learning.

Piaget said, "The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.” It can be said that the "soul" of "literacy-based" teaching design is to use the "learner-centered" teaching paradigm to cultivate students to become excellent "thinkers" and "inquirers", rather than “memorizers” of ready-made knowledge.