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Instructional Design is one of those fields where the knowledge base is constantly being refined. This post will feature one of the many theorists whose contributions to the development of the field, I believe, is as fundamental as a drop of water is to one who is deprived of it.

= Rand J. Spiro = Rand Jerome Spiro is a well-known professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology in the Department of Counselling, Educational Psychology and Special Education at Michigan State University. The 72 year old psychologist and theorist, is the mastermind behind Cognitive Flexibility Theory. Embedded in constructivism, his research is representative of new ways we can learn with technology, to enhance “21st century skills,” especially the ability to deal with novelty, in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world. Rand Spiro views the world as a complex structure and it is within that framework of complexity that the challenge of understanding advanced bodies of knowledge poses obstacles for successful teaching and learning. His aim is to promote a new kind of learning to support adaptive response to novelty, an increasingly essential skill in these times of growing complexity and accelerating change. It is in this domain of ill-structured complexity and advanced knowledge that Spiro has pioneered Cognitive Flexibility Theory, and along with his colleagues has sought to restructure teaching and learning for an ever-changing and complex world.

Early Life/Biography
Born in Bronx, New York, in 1948, Rand J. Spiro, Ph.D., is a professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. He has two children Stephanie and Jarrett and enjoys photography, film and philosophy. Spiro received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics in 1969 which commenced his journey in the field of economics. He taught Macroeconomic Analysis at that very college and was a predoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He received both his Masters Degree and Doctorate in Experimental Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University in 1972 and1975 respectively. Rand J Spiro is a published author and researcher whose work has been explored from 1975 and continues to make its impact to this present day.

Education and Academic Career
A distinguished Senior Scholar in the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Rand Spiro served there as  Professor of Educational Psychology and Psychology, as well as at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Yale and Harvard University welcomed him as a Visiting Scientist in the Psychology and Computer Science Departments  and Education Departments respectively. At Yale he worked for sometime in the Yale Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. As a founding member of the National Center for the study of Reading at Illinois, he served as co director since its inception. He also served as Chair of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois.

Presentations
Rand Spiros list of featured presentations as cited on his 'About Me' page.

Altogether, over 100 invited presentations have been made to scholarly groups, including major invited addresses to professional societies such as the American Psychological Association (co-sponsored by the Experimental Psychology and Educational Psychology divisions), the Cognitive Science Society, the American Educational Research Association (three: one for Division C, one for Division I and one for Division K). the International Reading Association, the National Conference on Research in English (President's Invitational Address), the Semiotics Society of America, the National Reading Conference, a Director's Invitational Seminar at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, invited colloquia at universities such as Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Northwestern, Georgia, Indiana, Washington, Arizona, Delaware, Georgia Tech, New York University, Wisconsin, McGill, Lisbon, Rome, Tokyo, Canterbury (New Zealand), universities in Beijing and Shanghai, and various universities in Portugal (under the sponsorship of the Joint Luso-American Fulbright Commission), invited talks at NATO conferences in Brussels (Belgium), Leuven (Belgium), Espinho (Portugal), Crete (Greece) and Edinburgh (UK), and numerous other invited presentations around the world.

Research
Cognitive Flexibility Theory epitomizes Spiro’s approach to the use of technology for the development of the ability of learners to respond adaptively to new real-world situations. Areas of research are as follows:


 * 1) Deep and open learning on the web
 * 2) Instructional hypermedia systems to promote the attainment of high proficiency learning goals
 * 3) Knowledge acquisition in complex subject areas
 * 4) New literacies and new forms of reading comprehension in the online world
 * 5) Case-based learning with technology for independent knowledge application in non-routine situations in the professions
 * 6) Expertise and acceleration in the development of expertise
 * 7) Assessment of 21st century skills and learning in areas of grand social challenge

Cognitive Flexibility Theory
In Spiro's words, Cognitive Flexibility Theory is about preparing people to select, adapt, and combine knowledge and experience in new ways to deal with situations that are different than the ones they have encountered before. What is of great concern to him is the flexible application of knowledge in new contexts. He believes there are always new contexts and you just can’t rely on old templates. This theory of learning and instruction was designed to address four significant goals.

Spiro, Feltovich and Coulson argue that the failure of many instructional systems has many commonalities of design founded upon biases and assumptions which represent the instructional domain and its associated performance demands in very simplistic and well- structured ways. By his measure this is unrealistic and any effective approach to instruction must consider several highly interrelated topics. "Spiro and his colleagues have shown a number of studies that when students attempt to apply to an ill-structured domain, the strategies they have used effectively for understanding well structured domains, they make errors of oversimplification and over generalizations and over reliance of context independent representations(Spiro et al. 1988).
 * 1) Assisting persons to assimilate important but difficult subject matter
 * 2) Encourage the development of adaptive, flexible use of knowledge in real world settings
 * 3) Changing innate ways of thinking
 * 4) Developing hypermedia learning environments to promote complex learning and flexible knowledge application.

Implications for Instruction
The case that Spiro puts forward for instruction, is that it must provide students with multiple ways of representing the information, purporting that knowledge should be constructed and case based, with knowledge sources highly interconnected.

Core Principles of Cognitive Flexibility Theory
The cognitive Flexibility Theory is heavily reliant upon the notion that learners must manipulate both the means and the process by which knowledge and content is represented. It emphasizes the following for e-learning.


 * Knowledge is context dependent - It is essential then that the knowledge one is to attain must be perceived in context. The same concept according to Cognitive Flexibility Theory, must be organized in such a way that the learner interacts with it in a variety of situations to assist with the learning process.


 * Knowledge cannot be oversimplified - Rather than reducing the content to its bare basics, it should be challenging enough to keep learners interested in the task at had. In this way learners can explore and pull apart in an effort to make connections even in the face of complex problems.


 * Knowledge is constructed - Here CFT makes the case for case based learning. It activates the constructivist approach to learning where learners construct knowledge rather than it being transmitted to them. Students are therefore engaged and responsible for their own learning.


 * Knowledge is interconnected - The knowledge to be assimilated should not be compartmentalized rather it should interconnected so that students can make better meaning of it. Opportunities should be provided for students to connect with previous knowledge.

The foundation of the Cognitive Flexibility Theory is that learners are better able to acquire and retain knowledge if they are encouraged to develop their own representation of it.

Publications/Books
Spiro has co-authored and edited a range of books. His publications include the books Schooling and the Acquisition of Knowledge; Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension; Cognition, Education, and Multimedia; and Hypertext & Cognition. According to Google Scholar the number of citations account for 16,718. His books include:


 * Spiro, R. J., Bruce, B. C., & Brewer, W. F. (Eds.) (1980; reissued by Routledge in 2018).  Theoretical issues in reading comprehension: Perspectives from cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and education.  Hillsdale, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum.


 * Spiro, R. J., DeSchryver, M., Morsink, P., Schira-Hagerman, M., & Thompson, P. (Eds.) (2015). Reading at a crossroads? Disjunctures and continuities in our conceptions and practices of reading in the 21st century.  NY: Routledge.


 * Nix, D., & Spiro, R. J. (Eds.) (1990). Cognition, education, and multimedia: Explorations in high technology.  Hillsdale, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum.


 * Anderson, R. C., Spiro, R. J., & Montague, W. E. (Eds.) (1977; reissued by Routledge in 2017).  Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge.  Hillsdale, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum.