Design Strategies Based Instructional Design Approach

In most Chinese literature, the origin of the project method was defined as theproduction of American Progressive Education Movement at the beginning of20thcentury, especially William Heard Kilpatrick’s paper “the Project Method” whichpublished in1918. However a new paper “’I Had Made a Mistake’: William H.Kilpatrick and the Project Method” published by “Teacher College Record” in2012made it necessary for people to reexamine the origin and the definition of theproject method. Though the project method is not a new issue, the latest literaturemakes it of great value.There are three main problems in this research. Firstly, what is the projectmethod? I summarize the related Chinese literature and English literature by usingLiterature Analysis Method and conclude three main kinds of definition. Then I queryabout the two definition of these in a speculative way and get the result ofanalyzing.After that I introduce two basic approaches of the project method andconclude some strategies about instruction design based on the project method frompresent theories. Secondly, how to make the instruction design with the unit of“branch structure” in Algorithm and Programming courses from Shanghai high schoolInformation and Technology curriculum? After analyzing the characteristic of the unit,I try to make the instruction design based on the project method by using Case StudyMethod. For the purpose of exploring some uncertain points in the instruction design,I make some research hypothesis. Thirdly, what strategies of instruction design doesthe research conclude? After teaching practices, I check the research hypothesis byusing interview method and data analysis. Finally I suggest some strategies ofinstruction design.Research results show: The project method is not originated from AmericanProgressive Education Movement. Rather it grew out of the architectural andengineering education movement during the late16th century in Italy. Today theproject method is still playing an important role in science, agriculture andtechnology education in foreign countries. The core of the project method is review what the student had learned in this unit through doing a project after learning aunit.There are two strategies of instruction design suggested by this research. Firstly,the teacher should add an index for your example of the project and highlight somecaptions at the key points. Secondly, the teacher should arrange a group of basicexercises for the student before the project activity.At last, the author wants to give three advises to the people who would like tomake some related research. Firstly, you can make research about the projectmethod in Labor Technology and some other subjects. Secondly, for checking theeffectiveness of the strategies you have got, you can apply them into another class.Thirdly, you can also apply the project method to the other units in Algorithm andProgramming courses and the other modules in Information and Technologycurriculum.