ABSTRACT
This chapter describes three instructional approaches that support failed learning endeavors. It explores importance of imagination when learners turn their attention to those alternative ways of understanding and recreating their representations. J.M. Carroll was one of a group of psychologists at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center who explored the learning problems presented by the mass introduction of computers. That group wanted to find out how new users went about learning their computers so that they could design better training manuals and help features. Carrol saw a pattern in their learning dysfunctions. It was caused by a clash between the systematic step-by-step way the computer designers thought people learned and the active way they actually do. Offering a design-based approach to learning called minimalism, Carroll challenges to stop obstructing learning with too many instructions, too much reading, and endless explanations. Imagination is a skill to be developed and nurtured. It requires craft and deliberate practice.
