ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book helps educators and trainers to create more effective and appealing instruction by making it easier to understand the various methods of instruction that are prescribed by these prominent instructional theories. Over the past 20 years, methods of instruction (such as expository and discovery) have been analyzed to identify fairly elementary components that comprise them, such as examples, feedback, visual representations, and mnemonics. Many prescriptions for the use of such strategy components have been generated and validated since the mid 1960s. Instructional theory addresses two questions: What methods should be used in the design of instruction? and when should each be used? These two concerns can be labeled as methods and situations. Statements that link situations and methods are called “principles” or “theories.” Methods may be individual strategy components, the elementary building blocks from which methods are created.
