ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there are some obvious parallels from the perspective of General Didactics (GD) and Instructional Design's (ID) historical development and that they thus share many features. When scholars refer to the history of GD and ID, it seems to be common practice to trace back both fields to ancient times by referring, for instance, to Plato and Aristotle as well as to Cicero or Quintilian. Regarding the core elements of GD, there is one traditional model which every teacher has to know and every student has to learn: it is the so-called didactic triangle. The didactic triangle can be seen to offer tools that help sharpen the focus for planning and analyzing instruction. Although the Cognitive Load Theory emerged in the late 1980s, it can be traced back to the times of information science, programmed instruction, and related cybernetic principles of learning and educational design in the 1960s.
