Michael Allen's 2009 e-Learning Annual

3.3. USING EVIDENCE TO GUIDE INSTRUCTIONAL DECISIONS

EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, identified the following top teaching and learning issues facing professionals in 2007:

1. Establishing and supporting a culture of evidence,

2. Demonstrating improvement of learning, and

3. Translating learning research into practice

(Campbell & Oblinger, 2007).

For the past ten years I have collaborated with researchers and practitioners to promote "evidence-based practice." Evidence-based practice recommends that instructional decisions be shaped by experimental evidence regarding what works best for learning. For example, what evidence do we have for using animations? ...