Quite a bit of material to dig into this week. The articles were very interesting to me as they hit on what I do for a living. Bonner’s article was a great look at the need to bring cognitive theory into instructional design. So many students think that all online classes are the same, and probably rightly so in that they really are all about tasks and getting people trained… ummm… “educated” quickly. Bonner is advocating for a mixture of the best of both worlds in the situations where they are needed, and I really see the need for that in modern instructional design. How many more times can we do the whole “read a chapter, answer a discussion questions, respond to two other students, take a multiple choice exam, lather, rinse, repeat” cycle in our classes?

Ertmer was also a great article to read, as she was exploring behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Bringing these three together into a balanced view of instructional design is always difficult. I think most good instructional designers mix the best of all three at the appropriate times, whether they realize it or not. But when you intentionally try to find a good balance it often gets confusing, so this article would be a good reference. As someone that naturally leans towards constructivism, it is good to see what I can do to balance that out with other valid instructional theories.

Bernstein in this book, or at least this chapter of the book, is attempting to prove that social sciences are real sciences.  Even though I have a background in Geology, I have been a bit more open minded about what counts as Science. If it can be studied, I consider it Science. I know that many scientists look down on the Social Sciences – I heard it often in my undergrad courses studying to be a grade school Science/Art teacher. But I have never had a problem classifying the Social Sciences as real Science, so I didn’t find too much to dig into in this chapter. Not that it is a bad chapter, but written more for possibly someone that is more skeptical or questioning than me on the topic.