Mike Spector

Where did they get their PhD?
Spector earned his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin in 1978 in Philosophy, emphasizing epistemology and logic.

Where have they taught / worked?

 * 1972 – 1978	University of Texas at Austin (Lecturer)
 * 1978 – 1981	El Paso Community College (Instructor)
 * 1981 – 1983	Cubic Corporation (Systems Analyst)
 * 1983 – 1984	Tower Telescope, National Solar Observatory (Senior System Programmer)
 * 1984 – 1991	Jacksonville State University (Assistant/Associate Professor of Computer Science)
 * 1991 – 1997	Instructional Systems Research Branch USAF Armstrong Research Laboratory (Senior Scientist)
 * 1997 – 2000	University of Bergen, Norway (Professor/Director of the Educational Information Science and Technology Research Program); Agder University College, Norway (Professor II); Goteborg University, Sweden (Professor II); University of Minnesota (Adjunct member of graduate faculty)
 * 2000 – 2004	Syracuse University (Professor/Chair of Instructional Design, Development, & Evaluation)
 * 2004 – Present	Florida State University (Associate Director, Learning Systems Institute/Professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems)

What things are they best known for?

 * Automated support and intelligent tools for instructional design
 * Influence of epistemology on learning environments and instructional systems
 * Assessment of learning progress in complex and ill-structured problem-solving domains

What are their three most important publications?
Spector, J. M., Polson, M. C., & Muraida, D. J. (Eds.) (1993). Automating instructional design: Concepts and issues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology.

Spector, J. M. (1998). The role of epistemology in instructional design. Instructional Science, 26, 193-203.

Spector, J. M., & Anderson, T. M. (Eds.) (2000). Integrated and holistic perspectives on learning, instruction and technology: Understanding complexity. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press.

Who are their most frequent collaborators?

 * Daniel J. Muraida, 1990 - 1997 (17)
 * Paal I. Davidsen, 1995 - present (15)
 * Robert D. Tennyson, 1991 - 2000 (7)
 * Ileana de la Teja, 2001 - 2004 (5)
 * Tiffany A. Koszalka, 2003 - 2006 (5)

Who are their main philosophical rivals (if any)?

 * Norbert M. Seel is doing work closely related to Spector’s assessment research in complex domains although Seel’s focus is on the progressive development of mental models whereas Spector’s focus is on practical and scalable technologies to assess the progressive development of expertise
 * M. David Merrill’s work in the area of first principles for instruction is also closely related to Spector’s work in the area of philosophy and instructional design – Merrill is of course more well known and his First Principles of Instruction (2002) more widely read than Spector’s 1998 article
 * When pressed to identify researchers whose work may contradict his own work, Spector replied,


 * 'Contradict' is a very strong term - it implies the conjunction of two things, one of which is true and the other false. I do not see instructional design concepts, principles, positions or perspectives to be quite like that. Rather, I see aspects of various positions that might run counter to or in different directions from aspects in other positions.


 * With regard to my perspective on the relation of philosophy and instructional design, I see epistemology (the study of how we come to know about our world), particularly naturalistic approaches to epistemology, as more directly and immediately relevant than ontology (the study of the kinds of things that exist). Traditionally, instructional design has proceeded on the basis of the nature of the thing in the world that is the focus of instruction to a large degree determines informs how to arrange effective instruction. This perspective can be found in various places in the writings of Gagne and Merrill. My perspective is somewhat different from that. It is how we come to know about various kinds of things, how we come to master various skills, and how we develop various attitudes that to a large degree informs how to arrange effective instruction. These positions are not contradictory - rather, they represent differing points of departure that might well result in very similar instructional designs in a great many situations.


 * I reserve contradictions for politicians who have far more competence in that regard than do I.

What (in)famous / apocryphal stories exist about this person?

 * During the Advanced Instructional Design Advisor (AIDA) project at Armstrong Laboratory, Spector and Muraida had conducted and published a needs assessment for technical training based on data collected at the Technical Training Center at Lowry AFB; this report was handed out to Gagné, Merrill, Tennyson, Polson, Halff and others at an AIDA meeting at Armstrong Laboratory; during the meeting, the Colonel in charge at Lowry AFB called Armstrong Laboratory and said that the information should not be distributed (at that time he had not read the report) and Spector had to ask these distinguished to return their copies of the report. The Colonel later read and approved the report, and it was published by Armstrong Laboratory as a technical paper.
 * Spector invited his former boss at Armstrong Laboratory, Barbara Sorensen, to the University of Bergen in Norway for a meeting that eventually led to the 2000 book on Integrated Perspectives. Spector drove her to the airport for her return trip to the USA. At the airport, he slammed the door on her hand. She flew home with a broken finger as her last memory of Norway.

Short Biography (1-2 paragraphs)
Jonathan Michael “Mike” Spector is, in his own words“a short person with very short thoughts, such as this: ‘Would it not be a remarkable coincidence if the limits of my imagination happened to coincide with the limits of reality?’”

Dr. Spector grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and was expected to carry on his family’s Rabbinical tradition. At the last moment, he backed out of those plans to attend the Air Force Academy. After being discharged from the military, working for IBM as a junior systems analyst, and serving as a volunteer teacher in Israel for a year, he pursued his love of philosophy to a Ph.D. at the University of Texas in 1978.

Jobs in the corporate and academic realms lead to a summer research opportunity at the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory (a.k.a., Armstrong Laboratory) in San Antonio, Texas, that led to his work on the Advanced Instructional Design Advisor (AIDA) project. Through the AIDA project, he worked with such research consultants as Bob Gagné, Dave Merrill, Bob Tennyson, Henry Halff, Martha Polson, Charlie Reigeluth and Harry O’Neil.

When his work on AIDA wrapped up, he received a Fulbright Research Fellowship to the University of Bergen in Norway, where he worked until 2000 when he accepted a position as Chair of Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation at Syracuse University to pursue research in complex skill acquisition. Dr. Spector currently holds a research position at the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University, where he is developing a methodology to assess progress of learning and improved performance in solving complex and ill-structured problems.

Dr. Spector closed his autobiographical sketch with a quote from his philosophy mentor O. K. Bouwsma, “Surely your life must show what you think of yourself.” And this uncredited thought, “We know less than we are normally inclined to believe.”

The above information is summarized from a biographical sketch that Dr. Spector posted on his personal website (http://home.comcast.com/~spector007/).