Using Knowledge Objects to Design Instructional Learning Environments

Abstract

The primary purpose of this paper is to describe and illustrate a PEAnet knowledge structure and its use in designing instructional learning environments. The ID₂ Research Group at Utah State University used this architecture to design a prototype authoring system, the Instructional Simulator. The knowledge object architecture described has implications for the design of instructional systems beyond the prototype system. The emphasis of this paper is on the underlying architecture rather than on the Instructional Simulator prototype itself. The importance of our contribution is in defining knowledge objects, knowledge structures, knowledge bases, and how these content representations can be used with appropriate instructional strategy objects to provide a variety of instructional interactions, including learning environments and direct instruction, to a student. The detailed implementation of this architecture in the Instructional Simulator and subsequently in the IDVisualizer^TM is only one possible implementation of this architecture.