Impact of cognitive theory on the practice of courseware authoring

Abstract The cognitive revolution has yielded unprecedented progress in our understanding of higher cognitive processes such as remembering and learning. It is natural to expect this scientific breakthrough to inform and guide the design of instruction in general and computer-based instruction in particular. In this paper I survey the different ways in which recent advances in cognitive theory might influence the design of computer-based instruction and spell out their implications for the design of authoring tools and tutoring system shells. The discussion will be divided into four main sections. The first two sections deal with the design and the delivery of instruction. The third section analyzes the consequences for authoring systems. In the last section I propose a different way of thinking about this topic.