Effective Instruction

When comparing the two articles, I definitely gained more knowledge from A Model of Effective Instruction. I double checked to make sure that I wasn't missing any pages from the Principles of Instruction, but it only listed two principles. Both of the articles encouraged motivating the learners with various types of incentives. I feel that this is necessary, but can be overdone at times. It is a hard balance to find, especially when you start offering extrinsic rewards. I like how they encouraged the teacher to engage the students with activating their prior knowledge in order to get the most out the learning. I thought that the first article offered a more organized format for listing the elements of effective instruction. The QUAIT method was easily to follow and remember. It did seem a bit out dated, as far as some terminology that was used versus in the Principles article. Cognitive development was one reference that really stood out to me as showing it was a more up-to-date article.


I tried to see if the Mindmeister web site would work by posting the concept map, but it wouldn't display the map. I will be producing something similar on Word, but my laptop doesn't have a wireless internet connection since I am in the boonies right now (St. Paul!) The computer I am on has Word 1976 or something! My mom's dial-up even more ridiculous yesterday; pretty bad when you have to go to your grandmas for a better internet connection! I am spoiled by the city life. :-)


Lastly, I think that effective instruction is important for EVERY single educator, including LMS professionals. I think the most powerful piece of instruction is getting students to realize the connection that your lesson has to their real life. They need to know that their is a purpose for learning it, or they are like the rest of us when it comes to professional development and just are left wondering why their time is being wasted. I think we can help teachers by showing them news ways that technology is going to benefit the projects or lessons that they are learning. The time that a LMS instructor could save a classroom teacher is also a way to make them more effective. I can think of several ways that blogs could benefit a classroom, but teachers have such limited time to prepare the sites. I wish my LMS would time some time to set those types of things up for me right now in order for me to utilize what I am learning about technology. Hopefully I will be that "life-saver" some day!

P.S. Thank you Patrice for helping me with concept map!