Mashup of Bloom’s Taxonomy & Merrill’s Principles

In my mashup, Bloom and Merrill combine to create a strong focus on student centered, problem-based learning.

In the first section, I wanted to start with CREATING since the problem/scenario is the focus. This way, students will know that their main purpose for learning is to generate new ways to look or solve the issue I’ve brought up.

Next, I will have students relate their existing knowledge of the problem/concept so they can rev up their brainwaves. In this step, it is important for me to design specific activities for students to remember the information --through practice and repetition.

After their brains are awake and starting to make some connections, students need to apply their understanding of the new information. This is a critical step since students will be easily distracted with the “hard” work of applying something new. I will need to incorporate collaboration and active learning strategies as well as personal feedback many times during this section.

Lastly, students will need to evaluate their learning and responses to the problem/scenario under consideration. Groups will need to discuss their solutions in order to make recommendations based on their new learning.

The process, to me, repeats as needed. Learning is messy, so students who engage in multiple ways to look at a real-world problem will benefit from more nuanced parts of learning a concept.

Instructional Design Comparisons

 Merrill vs. Gagne

Two of the instructional design models we studied seem like opposite ends of the spectrum: Merrill’s Principles of Instruction and Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction. While both have attributes where the learner is central to the design, they are goal oriented, and focus on measurable outcomes, the two differ in the ways one looks at instruction.

Merrill's First Principles of Design: http://idmethodology.blogspot.com

Strengths of Merrill’s Principles

Because Merrill’s Principles are more constructivist-based design, the learning tasks pose problems the students will encounter in their everyday lives. The steps that ensure learning occurs bring the student full circle with activating what they already know, interacting with the new content, then integrating that content with their world. Instructors who give the learning as a whole rather than merely in pieces helps students break down the parts into smaller pieces to be solved. In order to show they have learned something new and integrated it into their knowledge base, learners must demonstrate the concept.

Strengths of Gagne’s 9 Events

Gagne’s design takes the instructor and student through nine specific steps for learning to occur. This behaviorist view of learning incorporates various stimuli for getting attention, sharing explicit objectives, and assessment. For instructors who are new to a content area or for students who thrive on step-by-step instruction, this design will be beneficial. The learning tasks can be presented in the same predictable manner which helps students establish a routine for learning/studying. Additionally, the learning goal is stated at the beginning of instruction, so students can use that as a guide for assessing their own learning.

https://elearningindustry.com/9-events-of-instruction-in-elearning-applying-gagnes

Weaknesses of Merrill’s Principles

One area of weakness is specific feedback for assessment. Although the instructor should be facilitating the learning tasks, there is no step that is specific to feedback as there is with Gagne’s design.

Weaknesses of Gagne’s 9 Events

Due to the structure of this design, the instructor may no be as flexible when students aren’t responding to the guided instruction portion of the lesson. Also, there isn’t as much emphasis on collaboration or applying the new learning to a real-world problem. Because of this, the student may not transfer knowledge from the class example to a novel example.

Evaluation

Personally, I respond to Merrill’s Principles more than Gagne’s. I relate to the constructivist view of education, and the idea of a problem to solve with new learning would allow me to zero in on the importance of my instruction -- how students can use the Language Arts in their lives. Problem-based learning in English/Language Arts doesn’t roll off the tongue easily like it does for other content classes. However, if I re-vision the “problem” as looking at a professional text (or photograph as I described in my discussion board), then the learning can take the form of “What did this author do to create….” whatever the new learning is. One caveat of this design for me is that I will undoubtedly forget to assess! I tend to get caught up in the fun of showing students how much they can learn from the literature we read and the topics we write about that I don’t always take time to talk about progress. I will definitely need to incorporate at least some of Gagne’s Events because of this issue.

Design Principles Comparisons

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