Robert Gagne’s 9 Events of Instruction

Pros

Gagne’s theory practices are systematic in nature. Providing a sequence of events and practical applications makes it simple to follow a process to get a desired result. The tasks seem to follow a logical order and provide a blue print for the individuals learning the task to feel confident in applying a step and achieving a desired outcome.  You can adjust to reach the different learning modalities during steps 3 and 4.  Gagne’s theory can be adapted to suit the needs of varied learners.

Cons

The steps require a lot of guided assistance when teaching the new skill. If there are steps that require critical thinking where the outcome could go more than one way, there may be some confusion in teaching/learning those steps. There isn’t a lot of independent/unassisted exploration.  This can possibly create a learner that isn’t likely to explore ways of problem solving, thus creating a learner that’s very dependent on guided information. Some instructional designers see this approach as a more boring and less challenging method of instructional design.