Layers revisited

Representation

What the user sees, hears, feels, etc.

Sensory experience – guides the user through learning

Control

The user input – how they are interacting with the instruction

Message

This is what comes back to the user in the representation layer.

Depends on their control – what they input

Strategy

Contains events (reads the control and sends the appropriate message)

Event: combination of time, space, goal, and activity

Content

Related to the actual goal – what it is that you are trying to teach

Operational principles – how does it work?

These can be socially constructed (think of the connotations that come with specific words, etc.)

What is the set of cause and effect relationships at work here?

Execution (Media Logic or Data Management)

How everything works together (from the instructors point of view)

What if they do the wrong thing at the wrong time? It may damage the students learning experience.

**You can tie it all together by revisiting the instructional design theories we have discussed. Their theories fit into different pieces of the layers-model we have created here. Theorists treat certain layers and ignore other layers.