Nine events of instruction

Definition

"Nine events of instruction" is an instructional design model put together by Gagne. This is a behaviorist model, but it also draws from cognitivism.

The nine events of instruction

Gagné's most essential ingrediants of teaching are:

• presenting the knowledge or demonstrating the skill
• providing practice with feedback
• providing learner guidance

These elements have be designed differently according to the type of learning level (learning goal) to be achieved.

Gagne's 9 general steps of instruction for learning are:

1. Gain attention:
   • e.g. present a good problem, a new situation, use a multimedia advertisement, ask questions.
   • This helps to ground the lesson, and to motivate
2. Describe the goal:
   • e.g. state what students will be able to accomplish and how they will be able to use the knowledge, give a demonstration if appropriate.
   • Allows students to frame information, i.e. treat it better.
3. Stimulate recall of prior knowledge
   • e.g. remind the student of prior knowledge relevant to the current lesson (facts, rules, procedures or skills). Show how knowledge is connected, provide the student with a framework that helps learning and remembering. Tests can be included.
4. Present the material to be learned
   • e.g. text, graphics, simulations, figures, pictures, sound, etc. Chunk information (avoid memory overload, recall information).
5. Provide guidance for learning
   • e.g. presentation of content is different from instructions on how to learn. Use of different channel (e.g. side-boxes)
6. Elicit performance "practice"
   • let the learner do something with the newly acquired behavior, practice skills or apply knowledge. At least use MCQ's.
7. Provide informative feedback ,
   • show correctness of the trainee's response, analyze learner's behavior, maybe present a good (step-by-step) solution of the problem
8. Assess performance test, if the lesson has been learned. Also give sometimes general progress information
9. Enhance retention and transfer :
   • e.g. inform the learner about similar problem situations, provide additional practice. Put the learner in a transfer situation. Maybe let the learner review the lesson.

Links

• http://www.my-ecoach.com/idtimeline/theory/gagne.html
• http://www.patsula.com/usefo/webbasedlearning/tutorial1/learning_theories_full_version.html

References

• Aronson, Dennis T., & Leslie J.Briggs, (1983). "Contributions of Gagn� and Briggs to a Prescriptive Model of Instruction", in Reigeluth, C.M. (1983) (e.d). Instructional Design Theories and Models: An Overview of their Current Status. Hillsdale, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

• Gagne, Robert M., Briggs, Leslie, J., Wager, Walter, F. (1985). Principles of Instructional Design, Wadsworth, ISBN 0030347572