Much instruction starts with abstract representations for which learners have insufficient foundation [1]. The British Standard, BS 7000-6:2005 Guide to Managing Inclusive Design, provides a comprehensive framework that can help all private enterprises, public sector and not-for-profit organizations, build a consistent approach to inclusive design into organizational culture as well as processes [2]. While courses, technology, and student services are typically designed for the narrow range of characteristics of the average student, the practice of universal design in education (UDE) considers people with a broad range of characteristics in the design of all educational products and environments [3]. This paper has been designed to provide an overview about the curriculum paradigm consisting in the fusion of the technology and the classroom instruction in economic higher education.information gap, concept map, active learning design, student-centred learning

Gabriel ZAMFIR

English

Research Papers in Economics

Revista Informatica Economică nr. 2(46)/2008 
 
140
Inclusive Design in Assisted Instruction 
 
Gabriel ZAMFIR 
The Teacher Training Department  
Academy of Economic Studies 
zamfir@ase.ro 
 
Much instruction starts with abstract representations for which learners have insuffi-
cient foundation [1]. The British Standard, BS 7000-6:2005 Guide to Managing Inclusive De-
sign, provides a comprehensive framework that can help all private enterprises, public sector 
and not-for-profit organizations, build a consistent approach to inclusive design into organ-
izational culture as well as processes [2]. While courses, technology, and student services are 
typically designed for the narrow range of characteristics of the average student, the practice 
of universal design in education (UDE) considers people with a broad range of characteris-
tics in the design of all educational products and environments [3]. This paper has been de-
signed to provide an overview about the curriculum paradigm consisting in the fusion of the 
technology and the classroom instruction in economic higher education. 
ACM Classification: K.3.1. Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI). 
Keywords: information gap, concept map, active learning design, student-centred learning. 
 
ntroduction 
In our knowledge society where time to 
learn is fast and competence domains are 
widened and in rapid evolution, the eco-
nomic higher education is forced to move 
towards the e-class model, characterized by 
an intensive use of personal computers and 
social functions founded on web. 
This research is based on the idea that as-
sisted instruction is a social application of the 
global information system, and it focuses on 
designing interactive educational standards 
referring to teaching, learning, assessing and 
self testing as methodological procedure. 
Such a manner can be understood as a default 
result of the developing of the hardware 
standards, which generated software stan-
dards, and, as a matter of fact, computer lit-
eracy standards. 
 
1. The cognitive, conceptual and techno-
logical infrastructure for an educational 
organization 
In our world of a continuous change, one of 
the most prevailing behaviours is that of con-
vergence [4]. People converge into new lo-
cal, global and virtual communities; concepts 
converge to form completely new concepts; 
technology converges to create new tech-
nologies and products; the personal computer 
become tool, tutor, tutee and finally the con-
text for education. In this new environment, 
professional skills converge to create new 
professions. 
The basis for this approach is the fact that 
technology is no more a hardware item but a 
system of knowledge. As a result, knowledge 
management can be studied from two per-
spectives: 
- Knowledge can be viewed as “Object”; in 
this case, researchers as practitioners are 
building knowledge systems; 
- Knowledge can be viewed as “Process”; in 
this case, researchers as practitioners are in-
volved in education [5]. 
These two perspectives are reflected by two 
types of organizations: the educational or-
ganization and the learning organization. 
Both of them use the workplace learning 
paradigm, integrate content and technology 
in the same infrastructure and develop the 
cognitive infrastructure to interact with an in-
formation-centred global economy. 
The concept of globalization was generated 
in a world which became a smaller place be-
cause of the term information technology. 
Technological knowledge is chaining in-
creasingly rapidly. In addition, further train-
ing, in-service training, continuing education 
and similar concepts are emerging. The edu-
IRevista Informatica Economică nr. 2(46)/2008 
 
141
cational scene has undergone remarkable 
change as we approach the learning society; 
notions are shaped by the paradigms we hold. 
In these sense “paradigm” means the “work-
ing model” of what we do, why and how we 
exist as intellect [6]. 
The difference between the learning society 
and the individual learning is the same as the 
difference between theory and practice. For 
effective learning to occur, it is necessary for 
an educational organization to have followed 
an appropriate prior path of learning in the 
relevant domain. 
An educational organization is an organiza-
tion based on a technological infrastructure 
developed through the process of internal 
R&D in a specific domain of knowledge. 
A first step in understanding the organiza-
tional transformation is to recognise the na-
ture of the organizational learning, in terms 
of collective cognition where individuals 
constantly make sense of the environment 
and negotiate each other’s learning expe-
riences [7]. 
An important distinction made by several re-
searchers into organizational learning has 
been that learning occurs at more than one 
level. The first one, which has been termed 
adaptive or single-loop learning, relates to 
the ability to adjust to new operating condi-
tions. The second one has been termed ge-
nerative or double-loop learning and it in-
volves being able to reassess the underlying 
assumptions behind a situation. The third one 
has been termed triple-loop learning and is 
based on the ability and awareness necessary 
in order to learn how to learn [8].  
A simple illustrative example can be taken 
from the technology: single-loop implies 
component competence, double-loop means 
configuration competence, while triple-loop 
reflects architectural competence. The 
process depends on the resource based view 
of the firm and generates knowledge transla-
tion, which can be defined as translating the 
meaning of a sentence in one language, with 
its specific cultural, technological and intel-
lectual context, to a second language in a 
new context. This approach explains, at the 
same time, the information gap, the concept 
developed as a limitation in communication 
between organizations and between individu-
als. 
Describing the process of metamorphosis of 
the educational organization, based on 
Bloom’s Taxonomy, adapted for organiza-
tional learning, single-loop learning implies 
the ability to recognize, assimilate and apply 
knowledge from outside the organization; 
double-loop means the ability for analysis 
and synthesis of knowledge, while triple-loop 
reflects the ability for knowledge evaluation. 
 
2. Knowledge translation 
Knowledge production is more than a deter-
ministic link between a conceptual map and 
technological infrastructure. Debating the 
meaning of profession and professional be-
haviour has a long and contested history in 
relation to education. 
In our society, the driving force is knowledge 
and the axial principle is computer-assisted 
theoretical knowledge universalized by the 
global information system. 
In our educational age, the key in develop-
ment is not discovery of new knowledge but 
the use and process of existing knowledge. 
In developing their chosen forms of knowl-
edge, pure and applied scientists often isolate 
their subject matter from its natural context. 
Education is one of the understandable area 
in which this over-simplified approach has 
had scientifically unanticipated consequences 
in the twenty one century. It may well define 
a “stage 1” view of the scientific method. 
A more general systems-oriented approach 
was needed. The “stage 2” form of the scien-
tific method takes the “default” system prop-
erties of the phenomena into account by in-
vestigating it in its context. 
If the term “science” is to be applied across a 
wider range of studies in education, then 
each of these areas of study needs to be re-
construed, both in terms of how scientific 
knowledge in this area is recognised and de-
fined, and in terms of how its particular 
forms of scientific method are made manifest 
and can be viewed one in relation to the 
other. 
These re-construal of the nature of the scien-Revista Informatica Economică nr. 2(46)/2008 
 
142
tific effort are requiring and producing meth-
odologies that go far beyond stage 2, to an 
over-arching framework for a new “stage 3” 
view [9]. We call this “explicit learning” by 
inclusive design in assisted instruction. 
In knowledge age, science represents the 
main manner for environment research and, 
at the same time, technology became default 
application of this research; o priority in or-
der to optimize these activities is the research 
in educational area. 
Such kind of evolution could be explained 
because of permanently re-organizing of the 
research processes and systematically update
and upgrade of the technological applica-
tions. 
Hardware and software applications are si-
multaneously objects and tools for scientific 
research. 
This approach generated the context for us-
ing the dichotomy object language – meta 
language, a characteristic of the program-
ming languages, in sequence to develop sci-
entific language.  
Fig. 1 presents a conceptual description of 
the scientific research as a technological ap-
plication in higher economic education [10].
 
 
Fig.1. A paradigm for scientific research in education 
  
Basis for a new educational model results 
from the earlier theoretical and practical re-
searches in didactics assisted design [4]; the-
ory and practice interact in the educational 
space, and the learning system becomes the 
engine of the learning society. 
 
3. Knowledge cube 
Considering pedagogy to be the activities 
that assist understanding, and teaching to be 
scaffolding learning activities and mediation 
of learning experience, technology could be 
used in activities for developing learning ob-
jects, or as tools, in order to contribute to the 
completion of tasks. Tasks are undertaken in 
order to achieve a result or outcome. This 
new model is two-sided and requires shared 
effort and conscientiousness on the part of 
learners and teachers. 
Categorization, as a central topic in cognitive 
psychology, in linguistics, and in philosophy, 
it is decisive exactly in learning. Concepts 
categorization enables the student to classify 
(or to recognize the classification of) objects 
or concepts that belong to a group. This char-
acteristic accelerates the thinking process, 
favours the instant selective perception and 
facilitates generalization and learning. This is 
the pyramid of concepts and represents the 
basis for knowledge, comprehension and ap-
plication. Categorization, together with proc-
essing and analogical reasoning, has a special 
role in the inference of non-explicit (tacit) 
knowledge that the learner can conclude 
from what he has seen or heard.  
Conceptual categories are higher order con-
cepts, and they express the specific role of 
concepts in their contexts, and in concepts 
mapping they are visual elements relevant to 
analysis, synthesis and evaluation. These en-
tities have a special role in processing ex-
plicit knowledge that the learner can receive Revista Informatica Economică nr. 2(46)/2008 
 
143
in a pedagogical dialog. 
Scaffolding in assisted instruction consists
in developing and using dedicated applica-
tions in order to match tacit knowledge to 
explicit knowledge in the zone of proximal 
development. This approach invokes active 
learning design and ensures student-centred 
learning (see Fig. 2). 
 
 
Fig.2. Knowledge cube in assisted instruction 
 
When the personal computer is used to in-
struct in traditional mode a subject matter 
area, it becomes a tutor. In assisted instruc-
tion, the teachers educated using the principle 
of computer literacy, become competent us-
ers; they develop, adapt, and optimize their 
applications, based on their experiences, ob-
servations and interactions. They can reduce 
the routine, when it is required, by recording 
it in procedures, or they can stimulate the 
routine, in the other cases [11, pp. 50-55]. 
(1) In a traditional approach, the term com-
puter-assisted instruction is used to describe 
the tutor mode; with advanced users, the con-
tent, gradually refined (data, information, 
knowledge and objects) is based on a glos-
sary, permanently improved: as a pyramid of 
concepts for knowledge, comprehension and 
application, and as a concepts map for analy-
sis, synthesis and evaluation. 
(2) In the tool mode, the computer solves a 
practical function in getting a job done. It 
may become a paintbrush, a typewriter or an 
electronic spreadsheet. The widespread ac-
ceptance of tool applications such as data-
base management caused schools to rethink 
the meaning of computer literacy. At this 
level, we optimize the convert process in the 
dichotomy tacit-explicit knowledge. 
(3) When computers are tutee, the roles are 
reversed: the student becomes the tutor. The 
student teaches the computer. In this behav-
iour, learning about computer is seen as a 
discipline unique unto itself: it is the begin-
ning for training the trainers. There is a dedi-
cated discipline in this programme: Com-
puter Assisted Instruction, as it reflects the 
reference mode to the computer: tool, tutor 
and tutee. 
(4) When a personal computer becomes a Revista Informatica Economică nr. 2(46)/2008 
 
144
context, it integrates all forms of education 
(formal, no formal and informal) in a single 
one. The context reflects student desktop, 
teacher desktop or workplace office. The stu-
dent desktop could be placed at home, in the 
classroom or in the office. This metaphorical 
construct leads to the workplace learning 
concept; for an institution it could signify or-
ganizational learning. An educational institu-
tion is the first type for an enterprise which 
intends to develop into a learning organiza-
tion. 
 
4. Pedagogical content knowledge 
Technology has changed the cultural context 
of our world, and every process around us re-
lies, to some extent, upon technology. Using 
computer as cerebral extension, connecting 
computers and sharing resources, Informa-
tion and Communication Technology have 
changed, and continue to change the learning 
process developed into the conventional 
classrooms. 
This domain of knowledge consists of an un-
derstanding of how to represent specific sub-
ject matter topic and issues in ways that are 
appropriate to the diverse abilities and inter-
ests of learners. 
Figure 3 presents an example in order to re-
flect a structured access interface for a par-
ticular application (to edit a letter) using a 
program focused on text processing. 
 
Fig.3. Pedagogical content knowledge application  
 
This example contains four sections, just in 
case the letter is going to be a printed one; 
the first section includes the properties of the 
paper; the other sections refer the final object 
(the letter) which consists of three parts: title, 
content (one or more paragraphs) and, fi-
nally, date and signature. Each of the last 
three sections has assigned the main attrib-
utes of the text. The application consists of 
three types of objects for interaction: text 
box, command button and combo boxes. 
 Revista Informatica Economică nr. 2(46)/2008 
 
145
Conclusions 
Personal computers include two types of ac-
tivities for log on (identification and certifi-
cation) with the intention of transmitting 
commands. At the same time, there is a built-
in system authorization, so as to accept 
commands. There are three levels of generic 
users’ accounts: guest, standard user and ad-
ministrator, which reflect three levels of 
competence, in order to maintain a function-
ing operating system. 
Inclusive design in assisted instruction re-
flects a method for training users in a techno-
logical background, where there is a default 
interface, based on a programming environ-
ment which can generate easy access inter-
faces. 
 
References 
[1] M. David MERRILL: First Principles of 
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[3] Sheryl BURGSTAHLER, PhD:  Univer-
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Box 355670 Seattle, WA 98195-5670, 
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516-9 

Advanced information systems in education and the quality of education,

Developing computer literacy in processing spreadsheets,

Developing Explicit Learning in Assisted Instruction, in

Inclusive design as standard,

Information Technology and the Cognitive Domain,

PhD: Universal Design in Education: Principles and Applications,

Revisiting the roots of learning organization, A synthesis of the learning organization literature,

Inclusive Design in Assisted Instruction

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