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Abstract This chapter review article is focused in making comparisons in three guided instructional models. The first, minimal to moderate guidance supports that a teacher should be just a guide to students who will discover their own way to solve the problems they can face to do their assignments. This is because studies have shown that devoting so much time to explain students completely how to do their assignments is a wasting time to other students who have deep and wide background knowledge about the subject being taught in the class. In the other hand, fully guided instructional models argue that the only way students can succeed academically at school is according to Clark (2009), providing them information that fully explains the concepts and procedures that students are required to learn as well as learning strategy support that is compatible with human cognitive architecture. Finally, optimally guiding learning makes its mark explaining that guided learning should not to be minimally, but not completely full guided also, but guiding optimally according to individual knowledge, skill and understanding as needs emerge.

Chapter Review Article This chapter discusses studies that have important information about the amount of instructional guidance that should be provided to learners in order to learn best and take advantage of their background knowledge. Three approaches about instructional guidance to the learners are compared in this chapter. The first one is minimal to moderate guidance which is a very popular approach to instructional design such as constructivism, communities of practice, problem-based learning, inquiry learning, collaborative learning, scaffolding, immersive training, serious games, and discovery. The supporters of this minimal to moderate guidance method base their belief of the studies from Jerome Bruner (1961) to the studies of Savery and Duffy (2001) where they describe that minimal to moderate guiding to the learner is the most appropriate method for students because a teacher needs to leave a space for students to think, discover and do, and challenge the student’s thinking, not to proceduralize that thinking. The second approach to instructional guidance that is discussed in this chapter is fully guided instruction or direct instruction. This model of instruction according to Clark (2009), has been described as providing information that fully explains the concepts and procedures that students are required to learn as well as learning strategy support that is compatible with human cognitive architecture; and that is defining learning as a change in long term memory. The supporters of this model of teaching base their belief on the studies from Klahr & Nigan 2004) to Gersten (2009) where they describe the use of fully guided instruction in the classroom and they also call it explicit instruction in the following way: a) The teacher demonstrated a step-by-step plan for solving the problem; b) the plan was problem specific and not a generic, heuristic guide for solving problems; and c) students were actively encouraged to use the same procedure/steps demonstrated by the teacher. It is clear that there is a debate between which is the best method to use in designing instruction in the classroom. Both supporters have their own reasons and arguments to present and defend their own views on these issues. However, there is another third instructional model discussed in this chapter; the case for optimally guided learning. This model of guided leaning is the newest one that has been developed by Robert A. Reiser, the author of this book. The reasons this third method of optimally guided learning was born is because according to Reiser (2012), for those who argue on the method of fully guided instruction that it makes many students waste their time because they have advance background on the subject being taught in the classroom and for those who argue that minimal to moderate guided instruction make students learn slow and have misunderstanding about a subject being taught in the classroom because they need complete and fully guided leaning to succeed in their academic goals. According to Reiser (2012) he uses optimally guided learning instead of minimally guided instruction to underscore differences between fully guided or direct instruction where learning outcomes are not explicitly predefined. The goal is not also to guide minimally, but rather to guide optimally according to individual knowledge, skill and understanding as needs emerge. Personally this is the method of guided leaning I support because it gives a chance to every student to do his or her best and every student is supported to learn it does not matter what are his or her background knowledge. I believe that I have given the main points that are discussed in the chapter 38 in the book of Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology by Robert A. Reiser third edition. If somebody is interested to peruse around the entire chapter it is possible to do it purchasing, renting, or borrowing the book from a library. This is a very interesting chapter. I read it, enjoyed it, and learned professional information about instructional design and technology.

References Bruner, J. S. (1961). The Act of Discovery. Educational, 31(1), 21-32. Clark, R. E. (2009). How much and what type of guidance is optimal for learning from Instruction? New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Gersten, R. C. (2009). math Instructiom for Students with Learning Disabilities. Review of Educational Research, 79(3), 1202-1242. Klarhr, D. (2004). The equivalence of learning paths. Psychological Science, 15(6), 661-667. Reiser, R. A. (2012). Trends and Issuea in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd ed.). Bostom, MA: Pearson. Savery, J. R. (2001). Problem-based learning. Center for Research on Learning and Technology, 16-01(16), 1-16.