Evolution of Instructional Materials

Design

Responsivenes by Publishers

Effective Materials usually includethe following features:

• Instructional goals with adaptability to course requirements.

• Accurate, relevant, and relatively up-to-date information.

• Appropriate reading level and vocabulary.• Real-world applications of informational skills.• Development of insight and thinking skills

rather than just memorization of isolated or unrelated facts.

• Absence of stereotypes and biases.

Formats of instructional Materials

• Specialized formats include Braille, audio, digital text, and large print.

• For such materials publishers must meel technical specifications in preparing and delivering instructional materials for review and adoption.

Textbook Dominance

• Textbooks remain the main curriculum guides.

• They are the most frequently used instructional material for students and teachers.

• The amount of classroom time that students spend using textbooks is estimated at 75 to 90 percent.

The Teacher´s Manual

• It is a key presentationfeature that can be a strong selling point, especially if well designed.

• It contains instructional resources to supportinstructional strategies and activities.

• Its organization affects how well it can be adapted and used in the classroom.

• Teacher manuals and student instructional materials work well when they have the following basic features: practicality, alignment, coverage, readability, methods, assessment, management.

Technology Changes

• Changes in technology over the last seven decades have made visual presentation almost as important as content.

• With the expansion of technology, more specialized features have emerged.

Visual Presentation

Presentation• Research in 1920s found that serif typefaces and read more

quickly and easy that sans serif.• In the late 90s, many publishers began investing in

multimedia systems.

Organization• Any of the materials presented in various media will be

more effective than conventional classroom instruction.• Haphazard or poorly designed activities will not be as

effective, even if they are computer-simulation activities.

Challenging in Reviewing Content

• Are varied and numerous, including evaluating content that is comtroversial, innacurate, or without scholarship; written by anonymous authors; or misleading.

Controversies• Controversy sometimes arise because of different

beliefs about how best to approach a specific subject area.

• It has also arisen because the policies of other adoption states have created problems that affect instructional materials.

Innacurate Content• Research reported that materials often do not give

topics the treatment they deserve, contain factual errors, or persist in presenting disproved concepts.

Misleading Content Anlysis

• Publishers must show a correlation between their materialsand the curricular requirements of other states.

• The publisher´s approach to correlation analysis may actually be the cause of many problems with content

Priority Area: Presentation

• Presentation review includes teacher and students resources,and alignment of instructional co,ponents, organization, readability, pacing and ease of use.

• A major part of presentations concerns how well the student and the teacher resources work together.

• Research gives important guidance on how to judge other features of presentation.

• Visuals also play a role in readability and too many visuals can distract learners from the lñearning process.

Comprehensiveness of Student and Teacher Resources

• Resources must be complete enough to adress the targeted learning outcomes without requiring the teacher to prepare additional teaching materials for the course.

• These include: Student resources and teacher resources.

Educational Links Suggested

• http://worksheets4teachers.com• http://worksheetlibrary.com• http://educatico.ed.cr