In researching last week’s article regarding learning design, we came across Reigeluth and Beatty’s Instructional-Design Theories and Models: The Learner-Centered Paradigm of Education (2017). We thought that this title makes a good argument for the use of QueryTek because it presents a clear case for instructional design models that see the learner as an active, contextually embedded participant in the educational process. This fourth volume in their series developed several theoretical frameworks that reject rigid content delivery in favor of responsive, personalized, and often non-linear learning experiences. Instead of prescribing fixed instructional formats, their models make use of autonomy, relevance, problem-solving, and, importantly, authentic learner engagement.
Reigeluth and Beatty’s theories such as problem-centered instruction, personalized learning, and systems thinking in design, all suggest that instructional designers reconsider how, why, and when instruction occurs. To them, the learner is a thinker, builder, questioner and contributor whose development cannot be meaningfully supported without flexibility, feedback and contextual sensitivity more than a receptacle for content.
Their theories address the tensions that educators and designers face when trying to balance quality, scalability, and the agency of learners. Tools that support learner-centered goals will allow subject matter experts to build content as well as adaptive experiences. Those experiences invite learners to encounter material from multiple entry points, apply their understanding in varied contexts, and receive feedback that is timely, personalized and intellectually substantive.
QueryTek already engages with several of these core principles. The tool is a structured system that allows subject matter experts to craft assessment items tailored to specific cognitive objectives, content domains and instructional intentions. This flexibility supports personalization at the authoring stage, where the adaptive learning experience is first mounted. QueryTek iterates a thoughtful, dialogic workflow between the human author and the AI engine.
QueryTek’s integration of rejoinders, targeted feedback mechanisms that respond to common misconceptions or partial understanding, further aligns it with learner-centered principles. Rejoinders are pedagogically intentional responses that treat student misunderstanding as an opportunity for engagement rather than error correction. By giving SMEs control over the tone, format and cognitive direction of feedback, QueryTek helps preserve the learner’s sense of agency while still advancing clarity and conceptual rigor. And the same intelligence that drives item creation must also be available for structuring learning pathways that respond dynamically to what learners do and do not know, but that, dear reader, is another topic for another time.
The demand for authentic learning experiences is not met by just passive content engines or templated courseware. It requires tools that invite human authors to think pedagogically, design iteratively and respond thoughtfully to complexity. QueryTek’s architecture, built around SME-guided content generation, AI-assisted item generation and feedback modeling does exactly this.
QueryTek adapts and grows as learning design moves away from efficiency-first instructional design toward deeper, more context-aware models. A learner-centered orientation suggests different teaching strategies and a reconsideration of what instructional tools are and whom they serve. In that light, QueryTek is a process in motion and one that holds the potential to bridge the best thinking in instructional theory with the practical needs of those who write, teach and learn.
Source:
Reigeluth, Charles M., and Brian J. Beatty. 2017. Instructional-Design Theories and Models: The Learner-Centered Paradigm of Education. Vol. 4. New York: Routledge.
https://www.routledge.com/Instructional-Design-Theories-and-Models-Volume-IV-The-Learner-Centered-Paradigm-of-Education/Reigeluth-Beatty-Myers/p/book/9781138012936
Research Gate. The learner-centered paradigm of education.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306575155_The_learner-centered_paradigm_of_education_181
