What are the big ideas in IT?

With its focus on learner performance improvement, IT has at its core the field of instructional design. Instructional design is built on a large body of established research in instructional theory, which itself draws from the following core areas:

• Social science theories: general systems theory, information processing theory, communications theory, cognitive psychology, and instructional psychology
   

• Learning theories: behaviorism, cognitive science, constructivism, and social learning
   

• Instructional methods: cognitive apprenticeship, anchored instruction, problem-based/inquiry-based learning, and communities of practice
   

• Delivery formats: face-to-face, online, blended, synchronous, and asynchronous
   

All contemporary IT approaches  deal with the following components:

• Development of strong, measurable learning and performance objectives
   

• Consideration of the domains of desired earning outcomes (verbal, intellectual, psychomotor, attitudes)
   

• Role of technology in instruction and learning

Where did IT come from?
 

IT has its roots in the visual and audiovisual instruction movement of the early decades of the 20th century. During World War II, the U.S. military was able to leverage this new technology--films and filmstrips--to efficiently train large numbers of American soldiers for the war effort. Postwar interest by academic researchers to understand the learning principles behind these audiovisual devices contributed to the birth of the instructional technology movement in the 1960s.

Subsequent rapid advances in technological innovation (television, computers, and mobile devices) over the next 50 years as well as parallel advances in learning and instructional theories have resulted in a rich body of research that informs the field of IT.
 

Who are the thought leaders behind IT?

The field of IT is populated by many gurus. Below are a select few:

• Robert Gagne: educational psychologist known for his Conditions of Learning and Taxonomy of Learning Outcomes
   

• B.F. Skinner: psychologist known as the father of behaviorist learning theory, which led to the programmed instruction movement
   

• Benjamin Bloom: educational psychologist best known for his learning taxonomy which categorizes educational goals in three categories
   

• Walter Dick and Lou Carey: creators of the Dick and Carey model of instructional design built on a systems view of instruction
   

• David Merrill: educational researcher best known for his First Principles of Instruction
   

• Lev Vygotsky: Soviet psychologist known for popularizing social learning theory
   

• Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger: theorists known for discussing the concepts of legitimate peripheral participation and communities of practice, used in constructivist learning models