From Nine Events of Instruction to the First Principles of Instruction: Transformation of Learning Architecture for Society 5.0

Abstract

This keynote addresses a needed shift in designing learning architecture for transforming education to meet the needs of Society 5.0, Super Smart Society. Classroom of the Future Project is reviewed to image the transformation of education being sought in Japan. The Nine Events of Instruction, a traditional instructional design theory proposed by Robert M. Gagne, will be reviewed as a framework for facilitating human learning based on information processing theory. It will then be compared with a more recent framework of the First Principles of Instruction, proposed by M. David Merrill, reflecting various theories and models proposed based on constructivist psychology. Similarities and differences will be discussed to suggest how to utilize them as an architectural framework for blended learning design toward a more learner-centered self-directed learning environment, toward so-called Society 5.0.

Appendices

Appendix A: Instructional Strategy Sampler Based on Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction

1. Gaining Learner’s Attention

Let the students ready to start learning by:

• □ Start off with some episode, anecdotal, or some issue directly related to the main theme.

• □ Start off your instruction with something unusual, strange, and abrupt.

• □ Seek for something fresh so that the students will not feel “Oh, this one again?”

• □ Use issues, conflict, new fact to override students existing frame of mind.

2. Informing Learner of the Objective

Activate student thinking and let them concentrate key points by:

• □ Make the theme of the lesson visible and clear so the students will not spend time mindlessly

• □ Establish learning contract with students as to what to teach and what to learn

• □ Use plain language of the students to convey the learning objectives clearly

• □ List the checkpoints as to what are the key points of the unit

• □ Help the students find the value by showing how the unit at hand will be useful in their future

• □ Verify where the goal is so that the students themselves can realize when they accomplish it.

3. Stimulating Recall of Entry Conditions (Prior Learning)

Help the students retrieve what they have already learned from their brain by:

• □ Provide a review to refresh students’ mind about basics needed for the unit at hand

• □ Specifically identify how the basics of previous learning will relate to today’s learning

• □ Embed in the material triggers for remembering the basics, assuming that everything the students have learned in previous unit/lesson is already forgotten

• □ Use small quiz, question, or short review at the beginning of each unit for reviewing the basics.

4. Presenting New Information (Stimulus Materials)

Show the students what are the things they are expected to learn by:

• □ Clearly organize the new information to show the students rules and examples of new learning

• □ Use concrete and familiar examples of new concepts or rules, not just vague statements of concepts or rules themselves

• □ Ask the students to evoke the images that are familiar to their own experiences or environments

• □ Provide a simple, representative case first, then proceed to more complex cases with variations

• □ Use illustrations, figures, and tables to easily capture new materials as a whole, the position of an element, and relationships of that element to other elements.

5. Providing Learning Guidance

Help the students to remember new information/skills in a meaningful way by:

• □ Connect the newly presented information to what the students already know so that they can form a network of information in a meaningful way

• □ Use mnemonic devices, anecdotal, comparisons to more familiar basics, to provide a hint for remembering the new information

• □ Give the students many hints for understanding, and let them accustomed to the use of hints.

6. Giving Opportunities to Practice (Eliciting Performance)

Let the students have opportunities for practicing new contents by:

• □ Give the students enough chances of practice in a risk-free situation so they can find their weak points without punishment

• □ Let them try first, without seeing examples, so they know if they can do it by themselves

• □ Provide cues for earlier stages of practice, and gradually remove them as they master the skill

• □ When application skills are required, have them practices in diverse settings.

7. Providing Feedback

Help the students find weak areas to improve their knowledge/skills by:

• □ Provide informative feedback messages for incorrect answers so the students realize how to fix the problem

• □ Avoid negative feedback to highlight their failures

• □ Give the students appraisals for correct answers, and guidance for incorrect answers.

8. Assessing Learning Performance

Provide tests to verify what the students have become able to do, and feel good about their accomplishment by:

• □ Give the students enough practice opportunities before they are to take a test

• □ Construct a test with enough number of items so that only those who mastered the contents, not the lucky students, can pass the test

• □ Match the test with previously stated objectives and the contents of learning materials, no surprise on the test. Do not test what the students have never been taught.

9. Enhancing Retention & Transfer

Help the student sustain what they mastered and make the new learning applicable to other situations by:

• □ Schedule re-tests when they will be forgotten the new learning, since everyone remembers very little as time goes by

• □ When reviewing, do not let them study the materials that contain answers, but let them try practice items first without seeing the text, to find out how much they remember

• □ Provide application scenarios so that they can use the newly learned knowledge/skills

• □ Provide advanced exercises as an option at the end of each unit, but not as a requirement.

Note: Originally created by Katsuaki Suzuki in 2017.

Appendix B: Instructional Strategy Sampler Based on Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction

1. Real-World Problem

• □ Show the task that they will be able to do or the problem they will be able to solve as a result of completing a module or course (i.e., Learning objective).

• □ Challenge the learners if they can solve real-world problems (i.e., Pretest).

• □ Engage the learners with the whole-task problems, not just the basic operation or action level.

• □ Let the learners solve a progression of problems that are explicitly compared to one another.

2. Activation for Diagnosis

• □ Let the learners try to solve the problem by activating relevant previous experiences before teaching. Diagnose missing parts in their solution; if their solution is satisfactory, then no need for training thus finish training without teaching (cf. TOTE model).

• □ Direct the learners to recall, relate, describe, or apply knowledge from relevant past experiences that can be used as a foundation for solving this new problem.

• □ Provide with a relevant experience that can be used as a foundation for the new knowledge.

• □ Give the opportunity to demonstrate their previously acquired knowledge or skill.

3. Demonstration

• □ Demonstrate what is learned, rather than merely telling information about what is to be learned.

• □ Make demonstration consistent with the learning goal: (a) examples and non-examples for concepts, (b) demonstrations for procedures, (c) visualizations for processes, and (e) modeling for behavior.

• □ Provide with appropriate learner guidance including some of the following: (a) learners are directed to relevant information, (b) multiple representations are used for the demonstrations, or (c) multiple demonstrations are explicitly compared.

• □ Make media play a relevant instructional role.

4. Application

• □ Require the learners use their new knowledge or skill to solve similar but new problems.

• □ Make application (practice) and the posttest consistent with the stated or implied objectives: (a) information-about practice – recall or recognize information, (b) parts-of practice – locate, name, and/or describe each part, (c) kinds-of practice – identify new examples of each kind, (d) how-to practice – do the procedure and (e) what-happens practice – predict a consequence of a process given conditions, or find faulted conditions given an unexpected consequence.

• □ Guide the learners in their problem solving by appropriate feedback and coaching, including error detection and correction, and when this coaching is gradually withdrawn.

• □ Require the students solve a sequence of varied problems.

5. Integration

• □ Encourage learners transfer to the new knowledge or skill into their real-life job settings.

• □ Give the learners an opportunity to publicly demonstrate their new knowledge or skill.

• □ Let the learners reflect-on, discuss, and defend their new knowledge or skill.

• □ Let the learners create, invent, and explore new and personal ways to use their new knowledge or skills.

Note: Originally created by Katsuaki Suzuki in 2021.