Jeroen J. G. van Merriënboer

Jeroen J. G. van Merriënboer

LDT Leader & ID Model Designer

Presented by:The LBK Group

Flint Buchanan, Katrina Lowrey, Larry McCalla & Brian Wrenn

LDT Leader & ID Model Designer

Presented by:The LBK Group

Flint Buchanan, Katrina Lowrey, Larry McCalla & Brian Wrenn

Why is Jeroen a Great LDT Leader?

• He specializes in cognitive architecture and instruction, instructional design for complex learning, holistic approaches to instructional design, and adaptive e-learning applications.

• He has published over 100 scientific articles in the area of learning and instruction theory, and lifelong learning .

Jeroen, a great LDT Leader continued . . .

• His main area of expertise is learning and instruction, in particular instructional design and the use of new media in innovative learning environments.

• He has published widely on four-component instructional design, cognitive load theory, and lifelong learning.

4C/ID Graphic Model

• Learning Tasks are authentic experiences that begin with high JIT Info which is gradually reduced.

• Supportive Info provides the non-recurring aspects of learning task, and is the foundation on which the task is based.

• JIT Info are the recurring aspects that become automatic responses and can be gradually reduced.

• Part-time Practice provides additional practice for recurrent skill until they become automatic.

*We found Merriënboer ‘s diagram of the 4C/ID Model a little confusing, so we created a more visual diagram.

The LBK group contacted Jeroen via email and asked him the following questions . . .

1. Will you relate a personal anecdote that guides your relationship with instructional design and technology? An experience that helped form your current view of instructional design and technology?

2. How were you inspired to enter the field?

3. Are there any trends in the field that are particularly exciting for you? Media, learning environments?

4. What advice do you offer new students in the field of instructional design?

Will you relate a personal anecdote that guides your relationship with instructional design and technology? An experience that helped form your current view of instructional design & technology?

The first instructional design project I conducted was also my PhD project. The aim was to develop instructional strategies for teaching computer programming (very popular in the early 1980's). I studied and evaluated existing computer programming courses and was actually shocked by how ineffective they were. Most courses taught the 'commands' of the programming language one by one. At the end of the course, participants often had never seen a complete, working computer program and were certainly not able to design and write a computer program on their own.

continued . . .I started to study instructional design models in the hope that they would help me to design more effective courses (mostly the models described in the 1983 book edited by Charles Reigeluth). But to be honest, I found these models of very little help. It was then that I decided to develop a more holistic approach to instructional design. For my PhD, I developed and developed the so-called "reading approach" for teaching computer programming: students start with reading and testing existing computer programs, then complete missing part ofcomputer programs, and finally had to develop and write computer programs on their own. Many of these ideas (importance of real-life examples, backward chaining etc.) can still be found in my current work.

“Many of these ideas (importance of real-life examples, backward chaining etc.) can still be found in my current work.”

• Full professor of Learning and Instruction and Research Program Director, Department of Educational Development and Research / School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University.

• Scientific director of the Interuniversity Centre for Educational Research, a collaboration of ten Dutch universities offering a joint course program for PhD students in educational sciences.

And that current work is . . .

How were you inspired to enter the field?Actually by accident.

After completing my studies in cognitive and biological psychology at the University of Amsterdam I could not find a job (in the early 1980's there was a serious economic recession in the Netherlands).

I moved from Amsterdam to the University of Twente because they offered me a job as a research assistant in the (by then new) department of Applied Educational Sciences.

Are there any trends in the field that are particularly exciting for you? Media, learning environments?

• I am now particularly interested in instructional design approaches for the teaching of self-directed learning skills, lifelong learning skills, 21st century skills etc.

• Due to rapid changes in jobs and technologies, such skills are becoming more and more important.

continued…• Yet, there are almost no systematic

instructional design approaches for teaching such skills.

• I think it is of particular importance to develop approaches for the combined/integrated teaching of first order, domain specific skills and higher order skills.

What advice do you offer new students in the field of instructional design?

• Instructional design is an eclectic science which borrows from basic sciences such as psychology, sociology, economics, computer science etc. My advice to new

students would be not to limit themselves to instructional design, but also study one or more of the more basic sciences that can help to further develop and strengthen the field of instructional design.

Dr. Merriënboer (not smiling).