Lesson 4: Developing an Instructional Strategy

In this lesson, you learned about Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction and how they help learners process information in a way that enables deep learning. You also learned how the nine events can be used to create an instructional strategy which serves as a framework for developing your instructional materials. Finally, you learned how to describe learning components based on the nine events and document them in a lesson plan to be used for preparing your instructional materials.

Now, let’s review the purpose of each of the nine events. (For examples of how to use them review their individual sections in this lesson.)

1. Gaining attention is about capturing your learner’s interest at the beginning of instruction. It motivates them to pay attention, which is required for them to learn.
2. Informing learner of objectives puts the spotlight on what you are going to teach. This helps learners organize their thoughts and focus on the key elements of your instruction. It also helps them determine if the instruction will be relevant to their specific needs. If it is relevant, their interest in learning it will increase and they are more likely to pay attention.
3. Stimulating recall of prior learning is useful for both student and teacher. As a teacher, it provides you with information about what students already know giving insight into what you might need to review before beginning your instruction. For a student, it gets them ready to receive the new information by connecting it with something they already know.
4. Presenting the stimulus material is the delivery of your instructional materials. You are presenting content such as the concepts and principles required to understand the topic.
5. Providing learning guidance is the process of helping students practice with the information they have been taught. These are guided activities that help students process the information in their working memory so that it will eventually be stored in their long-term memory.
6. Eliciting the performance is when you give students an opportunity to practice with the information on their own. These activities further the processing required to move the information to long-term memory.
7. Providing feedback after students practice what they learn furthers their understanding of the information. It can be used to confirm whether they performed correctly or not, correct performance, and direct them to additional information to further enhance their performance.
8. Assessing the performance is used to evaluate the effectiveness of your instruction. This requires assessing student performance to see if they achieved the intended learning outcomes. Assessments must be tied to your learning objectives.
9. Enhancing retention and transfer provides students with further opportunities beyond the instruction to practice what they learned. This event is essential for helping your students retain what they learned and transfer it to their work environment.