It is very interesting to read the article "Learner-centered psychological principles in practice: Designs for distance education. Educational Technology" by Ellen D. Wagner and Barbara L. McCombs. In this article, the authors illustrated a changing trend for the way of educational and psychological literature describing instructional and training practices. It also compared traditionally, and learner-centered approaches toward instruction. In the article, the traditional instructional approaches were focused on a number of assumptions while the learner-centered psychological principles paid attention to the learners.
I think both of them are really persuasive theories with plenty of practice. Today, about thirty years later after the article was published. What I can increasingly experience is individuals’ behaviors are a big section of the learning, and the adjustable teaching materials may benefit more to the learners if their reflection can be taken into consideration (Driscoll, 2018). That is similar to what the Learner-Centered Psychological Principles mentioned in Wagner and McCombs’ article. The twelve principles that were proposed by McCombs in 1992 emerged into three themes, the last them was "The learner's development across all domains of functioning is never static and unchanging but is a dynamic growth process that serves inherent needs for mastery, control, and belonging." It already provided the point that the learner and learning process is not a static process, it always requires dynamic growth. The interaction between the learners and the instructors would provide a great way to improve all processes and outcomes. The instructional design in this process is the best tool.
Wagner and McCombs's article also pointed out the dilemma the educators and trainers will continue to face, which is true after years passed, due to the different needs and requirements, it is difficult to fit all needs regardless of how distance education or traditional education is designed. The encouraging thing that did not appear in their age is the high development of the internet and corresponding technologies (Grabinger, 1996). There are increasingly learners who benefit from it and the trainer groups are also turning to more diversity.
References:
Driscoll, M. P. (2018). Psychological foundations of instructional design. In R. A. Reiser, & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology(4thed.) (pp. 51-60). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Grabinger, S. R. (1996). Rich environments for active learning. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology. NY: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
Ellen D. Wagner and Barbara L. McCombs (1995, March/April). Learner centered psychological principles in practice: Designs for distance education. Educational Technology, 35(2), 33-35.
Hi Sungling,
I enjoyed your this reflection. It seems to have different feeling when every time I read the related topic of this article- "Learner-centered psychological principles in practice". As everyone generally agrees，the psychology is important for education. The same, it also is important for instruction design. When faced a case, the designers always need to find the different needs of trainers and learners, and further find a suitable solution for these different and even contradictory needs. In this process, I think that the psychology usually is very helpful for designers.
Xiaojiao Sun