Prior to the 1950's, (and based on philosophies as far back as the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Comenius, and Lancaster), the evolution of instructional design came from the "ability [for humans] to learn from their experiences and to pass along their wisdom to succeeding generations, [the] long struggle to extend opportunities to more people, [and to devise] means to help people learn that are easier, faster, surer, or less expensive than previous means' (Molenda, 2008). In 1912, following the visual instruction movement that introduced slides and silent films, Maria Montessori and Edward Thorndike stood out as forerunners of the Psycho-technologies paradigm (soft-technologies or technology as "process."). The boom of radios in the 1920's-1930's, marked a significant point at which the masses were reached, having some attempt made at providing an educational theme to a few channels. During the 1930s and 1940s, sound films started to gain legitimacy due to being greatly utilized by the military during the war and having actual experiments on mass communication developed, and through the "effectiveness of film for core instruction" (Molenda, 2006).
The 1950's (subsequently after WWII) introduced AV to education and training, and when it was demonstrated that films could convey the core content for an entire course, the phrase "a master teacher in every classroom" came to be. The systems approach, an offshoot of a technique of submarine hunting called operations research used during WWII, began to evolve within instructional design, which consisted of "subdividing the instructional planning process into steps, to arrange those steps in logical order, then to use the output of each step as the input of the next."Charles F. Hoban gave the keynote address at the Okoboji leadership conference in 1956, and introduced "a Systems Approach to Audio-Visual Communication" to educational technology leaders in the U.S. Around the same time, James Finn published several articles, promoting the notion that "instructional technology could be viewed as a way of thinking about instruction, not just a conglomeration of devices." "Together, they helped create momentum behind the idea of the systems approach, which eventually became a hallmark of the field" (Molenda, 2008). The introduction of education television in the 1950s and 1960s, marked another major development in hard technology combined with a "big idea" (although tv had been around for some time already). Due to a decision by the FCC to set aside 242 tv channels for educational purposes, along with significant contributions by the Ford Foundation, this form of mass communication was big.....through the early to mid-60s when the Ford Foundation changed its focus for funding in 1963, causing people to lose interest and quit promoting the technology.
Reiser (2007) explained how the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957, prompted the U.S. to pour millions of dollars into improving math and science, causing a huge amount of instructional material to be developed by Subject Matter Experts. Unfortunately, this material was rarely, if ever, released with actual feedback from learners involved......but fortunately resulting in Michael Scriven in the mid-60's, to point out the need to "try out drafts of instructional materials with learners prior to the time the materials were in their final form. [Thus enabling] educators to examine the materials and, if necessary, revise them while the materials were still in their formative stages." Scriven called this formative evaluation and "contrasted it with what he labeled summative evaluation, the testing of instructional materials after they are in their final form."
During the same time frame that Scriven was developing formative and summative evaluation techniques, Programmed Instruction boomed (early 60s). This new, hard technology (the teaching machine) combined with the transformation of teaching-learning arrangements that it brought (Personalized System of Instruction or PSI, a soft-technology) brought about a highly efficient and effective method of instruction that had a good cost-benefit payoff. Following this Programmed Instruction movement, Robert Mager "[recognized] the need to teach educators how to write objectives, [and] wrote Preparing Objectives for Programmed Instruction" (Reiser, 2007). The principles or elements, demonstrated in this book are used by many current-day instructional designers. "Another important event in the history of instructional design occurred in 1965, with the publication of The Conditions of Learning, written by Robert Gagne. [His work] in the area of learning hierarchies and hierarchical analysis also has had a significant impact on the instructional design field" (Reiser, 2007).
The 1970s saw more "big ideas" develop. A joint project known as the Instructional Development Institute (IDI), who developed a packaged training program on instructional development for teachers and that became "an extremely influential vehicle for disseminating ideas about the ISD process among educational technology faculty and students across the U.S." (Molenda, 2008). Florida State University was selected in 1973 by the DOD to develop procedures to substantially improve Army training, which led to the creation of a model called the IPISD (Interservice Procedures for Instructional Systems Development), which "eventually had enormous influence in military and industrial training because its use was mandated not only in all of the U.S. Armed Services but also among all defense contractors" (Molenda, 2008). The IPISD model consisted of five major parts of its system - Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Control.
Since the introduction of teaching machines, the next big hard technology was most likely the micro and personal computer. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) was first used by IBM researchers in the 1950s, but it wasn't until the early 1980s, a few years after microcomputers were introduced, that computers started to really have an increased interest in being used for instructional purposes. "By the end of 1982, the rapid proliferation of the personal computer was acknowledged by Time magazine by being named Machine of the Year" (Molenda, 2008). The personal computer made its way into the classroom and continued to increase in existence over the years, yet it wasn't until 2005 that classrooms reached recommended levels of the ration of student to computer access levels.
Internet in the 1990s made the biggest leap for advancing the goal of reaching the masses. "The rapid increase in connections to the Internet in the early 1990s vastly expanded the potential for sharing information at a distance, [and due to the ubiquity of the Internet protocol of the World Wide Web, the WWW] became the de facto standard platform for sharing resources" (Molenda 2008). Through this technology, distance education and web-based courses have allowed instruction to be provided economically by higher education institutes and corporations.
Besides spending alot of time reminiscing on the impact technology has had in my own life over the years, the history lesson this week has made it clear to me that instructional design has taken a long time to find it's way into the classroom (K-12), being met with resistance from the teachers themselves throughout the paradigm shifts in technology. Industry and military reasons for more readily embracing changes seem more obvious, as shown in the quote by the German Chief of General Staff at the end of WWII, "We had everything calculated perfectly except the speed with which America was able to train its people. Our major miscalculation was in underestimating their quick and complete mastery of film education" (Molenda, 2008). Better business (through better trained/educated employees) means a bigger bottom line for industries and corporations.
It leaves me wondering where the gap between teachers and instructional design truly started (I was thinking teachers might have started to show rumbling signs, or at least raise an eyebrow, when films in the 50s were being touted as having "a master teacher in every classroom"). Molenda states, "research and practice in educational technology are rooted in a primordial human drive to find ways of teaching in ways that are more efficient. Every civilization has developed formal methods of education more efficacious than the trial and error of everyday living." So at least those in the educational technology field believed that continuous improvement was a part of it. This also came with the desire to reach out and teach as many as possible (insert the multiple paradigm shifts of both instructional media and design over the years). The material this week used phrases such as "teacher use never more than "moderate" (AV in education and training), "role change not accepted by teachers"(in reference to the boom of programmed instruction and teaching machines transforming the teaching-learning arrangement), and "teacher resistance to the use of tv in their classrooms" (one of the reasons it was said the Ford Foundation pulled their funding for educational tv). While my summary of the material this week stayed mostly within the developments through the 20th century, it seems interesting to note at this point that Molenda touched on the emergence of Virtual Schools in the last decade as a "major phenomenon at the K-12 level in the Unites States."He stated that "many school districts, especially those in urban centers facing competition from home schooling, charter schools, and private alternatives, started virtual schools to try to retain students who were drifting outside the public school system." Maybe the teachers were never given a good (or good enough) answer to "What's In It for Me?" regarding each new development, until they have most recently started to respond to a drop in enrollment?
References:
Molenda, M. (2008). Historical foundations. In J. M.
Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. V. Merriënboer, & M. P. Dirscoll (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational
communications and technology (3rd ed.) (pp. 3-20). New York:
Taylor & Francis Group.
Reiser, R. A. (2007). A history of instructional design
and technology. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and
technology (pp. 17-34). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice
Hall.
Presentations by Molenda:
Pre-history of IT: 400 B.C. to
1899
Modern History of IT
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