6 外文文献原文及译文

原文：

Gagne's Theory of Instruction

Michael Corry

Dr. Donald Cunningham

P540 - Spring 1996

Robert Gagne's theory of instruction has provided a great number of valuable ideas to

instructional designers, trainers, and teachers. But is it really useful to everyone at all

times? During this paper, I will assume the position of a teacher educator (something I

have done formally for several years now) while examining the strengths and

weaknesses of Gagne's theory of instruction. Driscoll (1994) breaks Gagne's theory

into three major areas - the taxonomy of learning outcomes, the conditions of learning,

and the events of instruction. I will focus on each of these three areas while briefly

describing the theory of instruction. Once this brief introduction of the theory is

completed, I will attempt to turn this theory

strengths and weaknesses of it's various assumptions.

Gagne's Theory of Instruction

As previously explained Gagne's theory of instruction is commonly broken into three

areas. The first of these areas that I will discuss is the taxonomy of learning outcomes.

Gagne's taxonomy of learning outcomes is somewhat similar to Bloom's taxonomies

of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor outcomes (some of these taxonomies were

proposed by Bloom, but actually completed by others). Both Bloom and Gagne

believed that it was important to break down humans' learned capabilities into

categories or domains. Gagne's taxonomy consists of five categories of learning

outcomes - verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, attitudes, and

motor skills. Gagne, Briggs, and Wager (1992) explain that each of the categories

leads to a different class of human performance.

Essential to Gagne's ideas of instruction are what he calls

breaks these down into internal and external conditions. The internal conditions deal

with previously learned capabilities of the learner. Or in other words, what the learner

knows prior to the instruction. The external conditions deal with the stimuli (a purely

behaviorist term) that is presented externally to the learner. For example, what

instruction is provided to the learner.

To tie Gagne's theory of instruction together, he formulated nine events of instruction.

When followed, these events are intended to promote the transfer of knowledge or

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information from perception through the stages of memory. Gagne bases his events of

instruction on the cognitive information processing learning theory.

The way Gagne's theory is put into practice is as follows. First of all, the instructor

determines the objectives of the instruction. These objectives must then be

categorized into one of the five domains of learning outcomes. Each of the objectives

must be stated in performance terms using one of the standard verbs (i.e. states,

discriminates, classifies, etc.) associated with the particular learning outcome. The

instructor then uses the conditions of learning for the particular learning outcome to

determine the conditions necessary for learning. And finally, the events of instruction

necessary to promote the internal process of learning are chosen and put into the

lesson plan. The events in essence become the framework for the lesson plan or steps

of instruction.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Theory and it's Assumptions

As a teacher educator who has employed Gagne's theory into real life, I have some

unique insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the theory and it's assumptions. I

will again structure my comments following the three areas of the theory as described

by Driscoll (1994). I will first examine the domains of learning outcomes. As a

teacher the domains of learning have helped me to better organize my thoughts and

the objectives of the instructional lesson. This proved to be very beneficial to me as a

teacher, because I was always looking for a good way to put more structure into the

objectives of my lesson plans. Additionally, the domains of learning helped me to

better understand what types of learning I was expecting to see from my students.

One of the greatest weakness that I experienced with Gagne's theory was taking the

goals I had for my students, putting them into the correct learning outcome category,

and then creating objectives using Gagne's standard verbs. I would like to break this

problem into two parts. First, as I began to use the theory, it quickly became apparent

that some goals were easy to classify into the learning outcome categories, but that

many were not as easy to categorize. As a teacher, I spent a great deal of time reading

and studying Gagne's categories in an attempt to better understand how certain goals

fit in the different categories. This was good in the sense that it forced me to really

understand what I wanted my students to do. But, on the other hand, it always caused

me a great deal of uneasiness about whether or not I was fouling up the whole process

by putting the goal into the wrong learning outcome category.

The second half of this weakness has to do with creating objectives using Gagne's

standard verbs. After the experience with categorizing the goal into the proper

learning outcome, I was faced with changing my goal into a performance objective

using one of the standard verbs. This always bothered me as a teacher because I felt

like I couldn't always force my objectives into the form that the theory needed. I do

believe that writing down objectives is very important, but the standard verbs made

the process so rigid that I felt like I was filling in the blanks. I always felt like I had no

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creativity in writing the objectives - I felt pigeonholed. Along with this feeling came

the fact that all objectives had to be written in performance terms. This also made me

feel a little uneasy because I felt that some of the overriding objectives I had for my

students could not be expressed in performance terms. This objectives were more

process oriented than product oriented. It was always very difficult to put these

processes into performance terms using the standard verbs.

As a teacher educator I found that the conditions of learning proposed by Gagne were

very beneficial. I saw them as guidelines to follow. I didn't take them to be

algorithmic in nature but more heuristic. They seemed to make logical sense and in

fact I think they helped me better structure my lesson plans and my teaching. Once

again however, even though I viewed the conditions as heuristics, I did feel that I was

somewhat of a robot carrying out commands. I always felt as though I was being

driven by the conditions.

This leads directly to a discussion of the events of instruction. I felt that the events of

instruction really helped me the most as a teacher. The events gave me the skeleton on

which I could hang my lesson. The events not only provided me with a road map to

follow, but also a way to look at my lesson plans in a more holistic nature. I was able

to see how the parts of the lesson fit together to achieve the ultimate goal.

This part of Gagne's theory seemed to be the least rigid to me because you did not

have to follow it as rigorously as other parts of the theory. For example, Gagne

explains that most lessons should follow the sequence of the events of instruction, but

that the order is not absolute. While I appreciated the fact that this was less rigid than

other parts of the theory, I always had one important question. If the events of

instruction follow the cognitive learning process, then why would it be advisable to

change the sequence of the events or to leave events out? Wouldn't this have a great

impact of the learning process? Would learning still take place?

This leads me to the learning theory upon which Gagne bases his instructional theory.

As a teacher early in my career who was very enamored with computers, cognitive

information processing theory seemed like a great explanation of the learning process

(I am not sure I still feel the same way). However, those who do not understand or

agree with cognitive information processing theory might not feel the same. For those

people, I believe that Gagne's theory might not work very well for them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to summarize the points I have tried to cover in this paper.

First of all, Gagne's theory does provide a great deal of valuable information to

teachers like myself. I believe it is mostly appealing to those teachers who may be

early in their teaching careers and are in need of structure for their lesson plans and a

holistic view of their teaching. The theory is very systematic and rigid at most points.

It is almost like a cookbook recipe to ensure successful teaching and ultimately

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