Examines the history, characteristics, and value of designed instruction that is grounded in behaviorist, cognitive science, and constructivist theory. Changes that have allowed developmental phases of instructional design are considered, including instructional design methodology, physical technology, and programing mechanisms used to develop instructional software.

Key words: behaviorism, instructional design, constructivism, conceptual frameworks, computer software, cognitive models, machine learning, computer based instruction, cognitivism, learning modules.

A case study of two 5th-Grade children, Jason and Laura, is presented who participated in the teaching experiment, Children’s Construction of the Rational Numbers of Arithmetic. The case study begins on the 29th of November of their 5th-Grade in school and ends on the 5th of April of the same school year. Two basic problems were of interest in the case study. The first was to provide an analysis of the concepts and operations that are involved in the construction of three fractional schemes: a commensurate fractional scheme, a fractional composition scheme, and a fractional adding scheme. The second was to provide an analysis of the contribution of interactive mathematical activity in the construction of these schemes. The phrase, “commensurate factional scheme” refers to the concepts and operations that are involved in transforming a given fraction into another fraction that are both measures of an identical quantity. Likewise, “fractional composition scheme” refers to the concepts and operations that are involved in finding how much, say, 1/3 of 1/4 of a quantity is of the whole quantity, and “fractional adding scheme” refers to the concepts and operations involved in finding how much, say, 1/3 of a quantity joined to 1/4 of a quantity is of the whole quantity. Critical protocols were abstracted from the teaching episodes with the two children that illustrate what is meant by the schemes, changes in the children’s concepts and operations, and the interactive mathematical activity that was involved. The body of the case study consists of an on-going analysis of the children’s interactive mathematical activity and changes in that activity. The last section of the case study consists of an analysis of the constitutive aspects of the children’s constructive activity, including the role of social interaction and nonverbal interactions of the children with each other and with the computer software we used in teaching the children.

The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which certain socio-demographic features of the respondents, along with their level of computer self-efficacy and their attitudes (motivation) towards the use of digital media in class, can be regarded as predictors of constructivist learning. The research was conducted on a sample of eighth grade compulsory school pupils (N = 235). The results show that certain socio-demographic features are either not significant or are significant to a small extent in constructivist learning. The level of computer self-efficacy was a somewhat more significant predictor, especially in terms of the use of computer software and the internet. The most significant predictors are attitudes towards the use of digital media in classroom instruction and the benefits thereof for pupils, especially in the sense of the expectation of better learning outcomes. The results and the implications of the results are discussed in this paper.

Key words: digital media in classroom instruction, innovative learning, constructivist learning, compulsory education, computer self-efficacy, attitudes towards the media