DR. SUSAN L. STANSBERRY
Professor of Learning, Design, and Technology, Oklahoma State University
SITUATIONAL ONLINE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
The rationale for organizing online instructional strategies framed within situational instruction (citation) stems from my belief in meeting students where they are and helping them grow from there. Any instructional strategies can be great if applied correctly in the right situation. With technologies, we tend to function like the proverbial person who just learned how to use a hammer -- all of a sudden everything looks like a nail! Similarly, we discover a fabulous instructional technology tool, and we naturally want to apply it in all learning situations. I like to consider first the situation my students are facing: Is the topic we'll be covering unfamiliar to them? Are they likely to be confident or motivated to engage in this learning? Depending on those factors, I can better gauge my role
as instructor and select instructional strategies that are most likely to support learners in this particular situation. Finally, I can then consider which instructional technologies best facilitate the selected instructional strategies. It seems opposite of what we tend to do: get attached to a shiny new tool and then find some learners to test it out on!
The table below gives you an idea of the relationship between the Instructor's role and the Students' situation:
