ABSTRACT
What do we know about what happens to a learner during instruction? One of the most exacting criteria for testing our knowledge about any phenomenon is the extent to which we can build a model that exhibits the behavior being studied. If we can simulate it, then we have at least a sufficiency model. Of course, there may be many aspects of the model that lack plausibility, but they can then become the focus of further study. (Reitman, 1967, once characterized this simulation approach to cognitive psychology as a way to “invent what you need to know.”) In this chapter I will raise some questions about how one might go about building a model of a learner in an instructional mode (MOLIM).
