Robert Gagne's theory of instruction has provided a great number of valuable ideas to instructional designers, trainers, and teachers. But is it really useful to everyone at all times?
Gagne's Theory of Instruction
Gagne's taxonomy consists of five categories of learning outcomes - verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, attitudes, and motor skills. Gagne, Briggs, and Wager (1992) explain that each of the categories leads to a different class of human performance.
Essential to Gagne's ideas of instruction are what he calls "conditions of learning." He breaks these down into internal and external conditions. The internal conditions deal with previously learned capabilities of the learner. Or in other words, what the learner knows prior to the instruction. The external conditions deal with the stimuli (a purely behaviorist term) that is presented externally to the learner. For example, what instruction is provided to the learner.
To tie Gagne's theory of instruction together, he formulated nine events of instruction. When followed, these events are intended to promote the transfer of knowledge or information from perception through the stages of memory. Gagne bases his events of instruction on the cognitive information processing learning theory.
The way Gagne's theory is put into practice is as follows. First of all, the instructor determines the objectives of the instruction. These objectives must then be categorized into one of the five domains of learning outcomes. Each of the objectives must be stated in performance terms using one of the standard verbs (i.e. states, discriminates, classifies, etc.) associated with the particular learning outcome. The instructor then uses the conditions of learning for the particular learning outcome to determine the conditions necessary for learning. And finally, the events of instruction necessary to promote the internal process of learning are chosen and put into the lesson plan. The events in essence become the framework for the lesson plan or steps of instruction.
