Instructional design is not a new field, however the wider spread availability of learning modules across the internet and through other more dispersed means has brought greater criticism, thus greater focus, on the quality of these modules. As the author of one site puts its, "I'm just glad that we have gone through the slow and painful evolution out of behaviorism." I would caution that optimistic teacher, not quite yet. And perhaps fortunately, never completely so.

One of the well-founded (historically) instructional design models is present by Gagn‚. Information on this theory can be found athttp://tecfasun1.unige.ch/tecfa/research/CMC/FLISH95/
slides_39.html. He offers very specific steps of instruction, mainly based on finding the ideal sequence of present the right material to the learner at the right (primed) time. The first step is to get learner's interest. Although this seems quite trivial to posit as the first step of a learning theory, perhaps it is so fundamentally crucial that it deserves restating the obvious. The two next steps are to state the learning objective to the learner, and then try to recall some past learning that is related to the topic to be taught.

The next 'step' is a huge jump that shows some of the inconsistency of scale in this theory: present the learning material using sound learning theory, such as chunking etc. Perhaps in a more detailed explanation of this theory, by the author himself, this would have been a bit more expanded, being that it is the center of the theory.

The next couple steps are again fairly sound conventional learning theory, in that suggestions are made to try to present the material in another context, or from some other point of view (much less substantial than the learning in the last step) and then combine that with some practical exercises that allow students to contextualize and reinforce the learning.

The next three steps all involve learning assessment and assessment of the learning.

Another instructional system is found at: http://fcae.nova.edu/~duchaste/unimodel.html. This model didn't give it self a name, but here are its assertion (calling itself Functional).
 

                    Function                                                                Typical Approach

Specify goals to pursue	Specify content to learn
Accept diversity of outcomes	Demand common learning results
Request production of knowledge	Request communication of knowledge
Evaluate at the task level	Evaluate at the knowledge level
Build learning teams	Work individually and in groups
Encourage global communities	Work Locally

    
I specifically like two aspects of this model. The first is that it is willing to accept a diversity of outcomes. I think this is a huge problem with learning. I would not have thought focusing on a single outcome to have been a goal of learning, being that most of my education in the past has been in literature or education itself. But I currently attend a business school and the number of times there has been only one acceptable answer is phenomenal. The other amazing aspect of that one correct outcome is that it is the professor's and is thus sometimes very hard to have arrived at so we have to be TOLD it in the end.

The other aspect I really like about this model, and I realize it's a lot vaguer than the other more researched and refined models, is the global communities aspect. I think that this is such an important asset to learning, I'm sure it has the substance and theory behind it to provide any number of dissertation topics so I'll only mention one thing. The need for everyone, especially Americans it seems, (because I am one I guess and I see this failure) it to understand how people other cultures think. How people in other cultures view the world. What they know, what they value, how they see the world. I think if we understood this more the learning that would take place on all levels would be incredible. This isn't just cultural understanding ego-decentrification stuff either. I think that math, science, physics, as well as language, art, literature, and history could be greatly enhanced.

Instructional Systems Design Evaluation of Web-course which is an undergraduate English course in EthnicAmerican Literatuare.(http://www.majbill.vt.edu/fll/Fernandez/Spanish5984/syllabus/
syllabus.html)

Good Structure

• There is a detailed outline of the readings to be done for each day. I can't see enough of the teacher's plan to tell whether the selection of reading material is operative ideal nor if the sequence of readings is well structured. There are some very interesting ones, but most are very short, except for one novel. I think this is kind of odd, but again I couldn't find the overall theory behind the choices.

Clear Objectives

• I think the learning objectives of the class are vague. In fact this is the only objective based statement I found on the site, "We will be looking for the features and themes of that literature that mark it as uniquely representative of a particular culture but also representative of the general character of the American experience." It might be that the first video of the class goes over the details (it took me 10-15 minutes of reading the material to understand this is a web-class augmented by video instruction).

Small Units

• The units are very small. Most of the readings are only a few pages, and seem to be thematically joined with other readings for that day only.

Planned Participation

• There are planned participation events by chatting on the web.

Completeness

• Perhaps I should have chosen another site because this one does not give a whole lot of information on its design and holistic intent. As well the link to the last class' work is not working, so I can't tell much about their collective work. From the readings, this seems very complete. The readings are diverse in both chronology and writers (ethnicities) represented.

Repetition

• The readings are repetitious, the repetition I would call variations on a common theme. Learning wise I think this is the best part of the site.

Synthesis

• I can't discern this. I can't see the exact wording of the writing assignments. I can only guess with the insight the professor has in the selection of readings, it would be absurd to think she/he didn't have writing assignments that synthesized the material in a significant way.

Stimulation

• This is going to depend on the quality of the other students' remarks in the chat. This is the case in general I have found with a class in literature. There is enough diversity and stimulation in the readings, so the course itself has done a lot to ensure this factor.

Variety

• Great variety in the material, although it is ONLY read. Even though a lot of the content seems to taught with video, it does not seem as though there are any writers reading on the video. The only assignment though are writing assignments. Some added variety could be attained by having different methods of evaluation. Maybe a song, creating a craft like a quilt. Many things could be used to synthesize the learning of literature besides just writing an essay about it.

Open-ended

• Again it would be difficult for me to believe that a class in diversity would have closed-ended formulaic questions or guides for the essays. Although I cannot find an example essay or essay question, by faith in a teacher of ethnic literature makes me believe this is a fundamental point of the class open-endedness.

Feedback

• Although I can't tell specifically, the site has many links to resources for the distance learner. Specific pages refer the learner to people on the campus who can help, the professor herself, to a page of hints and tips for the distance learning. These themselves, though not as dynamic as direct feedback on work and ideas, are a form of feedback in case the student gets lost.

Continuous Evaluation

• I see absolutely no ongoing evaluation of the class itself. I am sure that it is very canned and methodological meaning that it has been created and probably won't be changed soon, and certainly not in the middle of the semester (as would be the point of doing continuos evaluation).