An expert teacher's thinking and teaching and instructional design models and principles: An ethnographic study

Educators in the field of instructional technology believe that Instructional Design (ID) theory and microdesign models have great potential to help teachers teach effectively. However, the available information on teachers' use of instructional design practices is not encouraging. Several professionals in the field pointed out the importance of examining research about teaching and teachers outside of the educational technology field. This study attempted to address this issue through an exploratory and in-depth examination of an expert teacher's thinking and teaching processes and to link those to instructional design procedures. The study employed a naturalistic approach which combined different methodological techniques. Data were analyzed in the constant comparative style, which allowed categories to emerge from the data. The generated conceptual model of the teacher's thinking and teaching was then compared to microinstructional systems design models and principles. The findings suggested that there were fundamental differences between the teacher's thinking and teaching processes and microinstructional design models.