Matching teaching scenarios with teaching methods in automated instructional design for ICT courses

Abstract

The basic principle of automated instructional design (AID) is to generate instruction plans based on given teaching conditions and objectives. It is of importance to design AID systems with guidance of specific principles of teaching and learning for specific courses. This paper proposes one conceptual model of AID for ICT courses, with a “Teaching scenario-Teaching method” framework. The basic ideal of this model is to link teaching methods with their matching teaching scenarios, and then generate templates of instruction plans for teachers. Teaching-Scenario Agent (TSA) computes which teaching scenario is most similar to the teaching practice, according to the inputs like learning contents, characteristics of learners, as well as learning objectives expected. Teaching-Method Agent (TMA) produces the template of instruction plan based on the teaching method matching with the teaching scenario identified by TSA. Five teaching methods (i.e., instruction-based, behaviour demonstration, behaviour imitation, personal inquiry and collaborative inquiry) of ICT courses and their typical procedures, as well as the features of their matching teaching scenarios have been discussed in this paper, with a purpose to give guidance to the matching process.