About Me

Joel Gardner

I'm Dr. Joel Gardner. My academic specialization is instructional design and instructional theory. My research and teaching focus on learning theory, instructional theory, and the application of research-based principles in educational practice.

I have been involved with teaching and learning for over a decade, including:

• several years teaching in international K-12, higher education, and religious settings.
• dozens of designed courses in higher education and corporate settings.
• hundreds of hours of training in corporate setting.

I work as an instructional design faculty member at Franklin University. I have also written several publications on the effective design of instruction and on the use of instructional and learning theory in educational practice.

I am particularly interested in instructional theory and have spent time researching, using, and writing about Merrill's First Principles of Instruction. I am also interested in the transfer of instructional theory to educational practice and have written about the role that an instructional design context plays in the design of instruction.

I consider my family to be the most important part of my life. I have been happily married to my beautiful wife Katie since 2003. We have a wonderful daughter Carolyn-Kate.

The Gardner Family. (Crazy picture from a couple of years ago).