Some comments are provided about challenges facing the "instructional theory community," and specific remarks are made about papers presented at a session on expectations about instructional theory at the 1998 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) (Session 2). An area of particular interest is that of instructional technology and the related challenges of using instructional theory to design instructional technology applications. Some ideas gained from conference presentations on instructional theory are discussed and some of the issues detected while reviewing papers on instructional theory are explored. The following presentations are reviewed: (1) "Designing Instruction for Meaningful Learning, Designing Instruction for Constructivist Learning" (Richard E. Mayer); (2) "Teaching and Learning for Understanding" (David M. Perkins and Chris Unger) (paper not actually presented at the AERA meeting); (3) "Cognitive Flexibility Theory as a Basis for Instructional Design: Technologies for Advanced Learning in Complex Domains" (Rand J. Spiro, Paul J. Feltovich, and Richard L. Coulson); (4) "Instructional Design Based on Knowledge Objects" (M. David Merrill); (5) "Self Science: Approach to Emotional Education" (Karen Stone); and (6) "The Elaboration Theory: Guidance for Scope and Sequence Decisions" (Charles M. Reigeluth). (SLD)