Component Display Theory (submitted by Laurie Cawthorn)

Component Display Theory

Family Tree Cognitivists

           The family tree for cognitivist focus theory to teach problem solving tactics with classroom practices. These cognitivists and the component display theory commonly define facts and rule to demonstrate procedural knowledge.  For example, keyboard tutorials practiced for a sustained period time increase typing speed and ability to expedite typing jobs. This completed task embodies the learner’s conditional knowledge, an optimal display for cognitive ability. In addition, active levels of cognitive processing serve as a bridge to increasing complexities in self-organization for compare and contrast analysis, applicable in systematic solutions for problems.

        From a historical point of view, in 1956, Bloom established his research on taxonomy in cognition, affective and psychomotor disciplines. Fast forward to current teacher training, Blooms Cognitive Taxonomy outlines the behavioral verbs to include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Similarly, David Merrill’s Component Display Theory was and is based upon the same assumptions as Robert Gagne's Events of Instruction. They agree that different types of learning procedures are best suited for teaching individual concepts to assign personal control during the learning process. This school of cognitivism establishes descriptive theories that describe how people learn and understand new ideas.

The Component Display Theory outlines how to design instruction for the cognitive domain, based on pre-determined objectives of instruction. This theory arose from the notion that learners select and control their own instructional strategies in response to content and presentation components. C.D.T. focuses on a singular idea or objective at a time. The Component Display Theory suggests a particular objective and learner, utilizes a unique combination of presentation forms that result in the most effective learning experience.

C.D.T. deals with the micro level of instruction, it works in conjunction with Reigeluth's Elaboration Theory, which is a macro learning system. Learning has two dimensions: content and performance. Content encompasses facts, concepts, procedures and principles. Performance consists of memory, utilization, generalizing.
The table below shows the corresponding relationship for presentation and task forms for the teacher-trainer to systematically organize objectives for cognitive-based lessons.

TEST    ITEM    TASK    LEVEL	PRIMARY PRESENTATION FORM
		Tell Via Generality (Generality	Tell Via Example (Example)	Question Via Example (Practice)	Question Via Generality (Generality Practice)
	Use Generality
	Remember Paraphrased Generality
	Remember Verbatim Generality

CALICO Journal, Volume 3 Number 4

APPLICATION OF COMPONENT DISPLAY THEORY

IN DESIGNING AND DEVELOPING CALI

Soo-Young Choi

Assistant Professor of Korean Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages

 Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 84602

 Profile for Component Display Theory

          Component Display Theory ( CDT)  frames the learning processes upon  an individual knowledge and skills. This theory emphasizes the process for any learner to receive and self-organize information. This learning process is the instructional designers’ point of influence to manipulate pieces of information that provide comprehension in order to access training or course content. The optimal results for learning outcomes anchor the instructional plans. As seen in the table below is two dimensions for the learning process that encode information into memory. The y-axis shows qualities for performance and the x-axis show the qualities for content.

performance	use		use   concepts	use  process	use  principles
	find		find  concepts	find  process	find principles
	remember	remember  facts	remember concepts	remember process	remember principles
		FACTs	CONCEPTs	PROCESS	PRINCIPLEs
		content	content	content	content
		evidence statement	model idea	procedure method	theory standard

      This table shows the unique combinations to design unique learning objectives and corresponding activities. The different types of associative and logical memory   complement the designs for instruction.According to Dr. David Merrill, who researches and explains the assumptions about cognition that underpins CDT. The associative and logical memory structures directly impact performances objective of Remember and Use/Find. He specifies that associate memory has an interconnected network-like structure whereas logical memory contains rules.  The significant aspect of CDT framework is that learners can select their own instructional strategies within content and presentation modules. These modules used for instructional design provide a high proportion of individualization and self-selected learning preferences and styles.  With an emphasis placed on individual control, there are transactions rather than presentation forms as well as learner control for guided strategies. This theory has been embedded within course and lesson design as familiar to current expert learning systems and authoring tools.

Theory in practice is to reduce stress placed in and upon learners memory. It is advantageous to select categories for multiple elements of information that lead into a single outcome, then assessment. In the end, this allows the teacher to construct lesser to more complex structure when delivering information that yields efficient learning to leverage the teaching processes.

Component Display Theory (C.D.T.) in my classroom

     C.D.T. provides the basis for my lesson design in our foreign language learning system and instructional materials. After viewing pictures for a  short story, sentence starters are posted for the whole class. The cognitive strategies in action are as follows:

Teacher models how to ask questions by saying aloud (with intonations)  the following sentence starters and not completing them :

“ What if  . . “

 “How come . .”

“I do know  . .”

 Then, to review our story after the first read, the sentence starters are repeated and teacher types the student responses for whole class view on (computer linked to) projector screen.  As  a third repetition, teacher reads aloud students previously completed sentences hand written on  white board before story and corresponding sentence starters completed after the story. The instructional design is for these second language students to self-select their instructional strategies. For my teacher best cognitive-based practices for (primary grade level) foreign language students is to concentrate on oral language development with word choice not pronunciation, student efficacy for meaningful communication:  when language is used for communicating original ideas. The ongoing prompt for cognitive based self-correction, “Does it sound right?” The repeated reading comprehension and assessment with remedial skills  level students is my method to assign new information into memory for foreign language comprehension, assemble  texts with increasing word count.

REFERENCES 

Anglin, Gary J. (1995). Instructional Technology: Past, Present, and Future (2nd Edition). Libraries Unlimited, Inc. Englewood, Colorado. 

Anderton, George; Parry, Kent; and Twitchell, David. (1990). A Simplified Approach to the Application of the Component Display Theory. Educational Technology. April 1990.

Braxton, Sherri; Bronico, Kimberly; and Looms, Thelma. Lessons Based on Component Display Theory. http://penta.ufrgs.br/edu/telelab/teclec/lesson_c.htm. 

Merrill, M. David. Component Display Theory. http://tecfa.unige.ch/themes/sa2/act-app-dos2-fic-component.htm. Accessed June 8, 2014

Reigeluth, Charles M. (1999). Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory (Volume II). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 

Tennyson, Robert D. (1994). Automating Instructional Design, Development, and Delivery. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg: Germany. 

Twitchell, David. (1990). A Comparison or Robert M. Gagne’s Events of Instruction and M. David Merrill’s Component Display Theory. Educational Technology. 

Recommended   hyperlinks  about   this   topic

    (1)    http://www.learning-theories.com/cognitivism.html

 Keywords suggested for text search: Schema, schemata, information processing, symbol manipulation, information mapping, mental models

Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions. Learning is defined as change in a learner’s schemata.

(2)    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWQDd-THyXU   Oct 28, 2013 
Uploaded by Piotr Peszko

 This video shows a live conversation between Dr. Robert Gagné and Dr. Merrill. The main points of Gagne and Merrill's respective learning theories are a comparison of the events of instruction, and Component Display Theory.
This is the first for this three consecutive part series and shown as less than 10 minutes per section.

(3)    Biography about Dr. David Merrill, Phd.

 http://osuedtech.blogspot.ae/2006/03/david-merrill-biography.html

           Dr. David Merrill is one of the most influential names in the field of Instructional Design. For over four decades, Merrill has provided many contributions to Instructional Design. This is a brief summary of his background and accomplishments.

Dr. David  Merrill earned his BA from Brigham Young University in 1961, his Ph.D from the University of Illinois in 1964 His publications include 12 books, 65 journal articles, 16 book chapters, 123 technical reports, and more. He has also performed work on 18 instructional computer products and expert system prototypes.

               Merrill has provided his knowledge and expertise to several academic institutions and corporations. Merrill has been a faculty member for Utah State University since 1987 where he is now an emeritus professor. Other academic institutions he has worked with include the University of Southern California, Brigham Young University, and George Peabody College for Teachers. He has also taught in several institutions internationally, such as Twente University in The Netherlands, and the University of Indonesia. Corporately, Merrill has provided leadership for educational technology companies, including being founder, director, and president of Microteacher, Inc., as well as being founder, director, and Vice President for Research for Courseware, Inc.

Today, Dr. Merrill independently contracts himself as an instructional effectiveness consultant. He has held many major instructional consulting contracts throughout his career, including Arthur Anderson & Company, IBM, the US Air Force Human Resources Lab, and United Airlines Services Corporation. His major research contracts have included the National Science Foundation, Navy Personnel Research and Development Center, US Air Force, US Department of Defense, Apple Computer Corporation, and others.

Dr. Merrill now resides in Kahuku, Hawaii with his wife Dixie where he works with BYU Hawaii. They have 6 children and 24 grandchildren. His birthday is March 27^th.