Introduction

This philosophy guides my actions as an Instructional Design practitioner. The following is an abbreviated version of the beliefs outlined in my philosophy statement.

You may also access a PDF of the full Learning and Instructional Design Philosophy complete with references and supporting evidence for the beliefs listed here.

The Learning Process

• Learning occurs within an individual's zone of proximal development.
• People learn as they actively construct meaningful, flexible schema within a domain.
• Learning reflects that knowledge is contextually specific and shared within a culture.

Influences on the Learning Process

• Students' zone of proximal development and everyday schema are influential in learning.
• Students' metacognitive abilities influence learning processes.
• Culture and context are interdependent and influence our learning.
• Student motivation is a multi-faceted construct that influences the learning process.
• Practices, curricula, and assessment enacted within various educational environments influences motivated behavior and learning.

The Role of the Instructional Designer in Facilitating Learning

• Instructional designers should focus on designing instructional tasks that support students in developing meaningful, flexible, and useful conceptual understanding.
• Instructional practices based upon themes from scaffolded instruction support students in developing conceptual understanding.
• Instructional practices that develop metacognitive abilities support students in actively constructing conceptual understanding.
• Instantiating instructional practices and curriculum based upon social-constructivist views of learning supports student thoughtfulness.
• Instructional Designers should enact practices proven to translate motivation into thoughtfulness.
• Instructional Designers should design assessments that can be used to make inferences regarding students' knowledge and skill and use those inferences to inform learning, instruction, and curriculum.
• Instructional Designers in a K-12 setting should be informed regarding educational policy and able to communicate with students, parents, administrators, and legislators regarding the appropriateness of the policies.