Prospective Instructional Design: Establishing Conditions for Emergent Learning

Abstract

Instructional designers plan current student experiences that promote future competence. There is a wide agreement that current instruction should allow students to “go beyond the information given” by demonstrating novel understanding. Less clear is what instructional efforts yield what specific emergent knowledge. Under these conditions, emergent learning remains an untestable, and therefore unscientific, concept. We describe a framework that creates emergent learning in both novice and experienced learners, and in many academic subjects, specifying preconditions that will yield specific emergent learning outcomes, and thereby promoting a desirable level of prospective precision in the planning of future student competence.