21
M. David Merrill
For over 50 years my career has been focused on one very important question: “What makes instruction effective, efficient, and engaging?” I decided that e-learning should refer to the quality of the instruction, not merely to how it is delivered, so I labeled effective, efficient, and engaging instruction as e3 instruction. In this brief presentation I will try to share a little of what I’ve learned. Perhaps the underlying message of my studies and this presentation is this simple statement: “Information alone is not instruction!”
In 1964, in our research lab at the University of Illinois, we were sending messages from one computer to another via ARPANET. Little did we realize the fantastic potential of this experimental communication from computer to computer. Unfortunately for our subsequent fortunes, none of us in that lab envisioned the Internet and the World Wide Web and the impact that this invention would have on communication, the availability of information, social interaction, commerce, education, and almost every other aspect of our lives.
“Information alone is not instruction!”
In 1963, I was doing my student teaching in a junior high school; my subject was American history. Unfortunately for this experience, my major was psychology with a minor in mathematics. I never had an American history class in my entire college career. The students’ textbook was woefully inadequate, so I spent my evenings poring through the American Encyclopedia, which fortunately was resident in my home. This paucity of information left me very underprepared for teaching these students. However, thanks to the ongoing presidential election (Nixon vs Kennedy), there was a debate on television that I could use as a springboard to teach a little about the electoral process, the Electoral College, and something about our two-party system of government.
But today, thanks to the Internet, interested learners can find information about almost anything in the world, whether current events or historical events. Teaching American history to junior high students today would be so much easier because of the almost unlimited amount of information in all different media that is available, including audio, video, animation, as well as text. But is access to this wealth of information instruction? What I’ve learned from my study of this question is that the answer is an emphatic NO! I repeat, Information alone is not instruction.
Motivation
All of us have heard the saying that “students didn’t learn because they just weren’t motivated.” Or that “motivation is the most important part of learning.” Or “we really need to find a way to motivate out students.” What is it that causes motivation? People have often asked me, “Is motivation one of your first principles of instruction?” The answer is no; motivation is not something we can do, motivation is an outcome. So, if it is an outcome, what causes motivation? Motivation comes from learning; the greatest motiv