EIPT Week of April 4 – 9

This week’s reading assignments were from Clark & Mayer, E-learning and The Science of Instruction and Bonk and Zhang, Empowering Online Learning.  Both books are easy to read and very informative. Clark and Mayer (2008) talks about the coherence principle which states you don’t add extra material to a learning activity that doesn’t help with the learning objective (pg 133). In Chapter 4 it talks about not adding unnecessary graphics or even music that might distract the learner. He quoted some studies that revealed students obtained higher scores when there was less graphics and/or music in the background to clutter the minds. Clark and Mayer (2008) states “background music and sounds may overload working memory” (pg 136).  This was a very interesting comment to me. I thought having classical music in the background was a positive thing while I was studying.  I did know that any songs with lyrics or intense classical songs were distracting but I never thought the music was overloading my memory.  Needless to say the music is off and I now study in a quiet environment. I thought it was also interesting that low level learners are more at risk to being overloaded with not only background noise but extra un-needed graphics or animation (Clark and Mayer, 2008, pg 145).  I also liked the fact that studies support the use of conversational style of presentation.  This is called the Personalization Principle (Clark and Mayer, 2008, pg 157). I never really thought of the computer as “social conversational partner” (pg 158). But, it makes sense. Clark and Mayer (2008) also talk about breaking down the lessons into small bits so a student won’t get overloaded. I know when I am doing an on-line activity, if it is too long, I lose interest or my mind just starts wandering. They recommend a breaking a lesson down into “sixteen segments with a continue button in the bottom right” (pg 189).  In Chapter 14, Clark and Mayer (2008) discuss how to build critical thinking skills or creativity.  They state that “specific programs are most useful when cognitive skills must be applied in a certain arena” (pg 323). We have a web-based learning environment where I work that teaches CPR. We are given case-scenarios and are asked to react to the scenario as we would in real life. It makes you do some critical thinking and helps with your reaction time to these scenarios.  This week’s readings helped me realize some areas in my personal learning and teaching experience need to change. I have noticed that without the music on I am able to focus better and am getting this blog done a little faster than usual. In building our web-site I will use a lot of the principals found in Clark and Mayer (2008), and in Bonk and Zhang (2008) with their R2D2 model, read, reflect, display and do.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Suzanne

Bonk, C.J., Zhang K. (2008). Empowering online learning 100+ activities        for reading, reflecting, displaying, & doing. San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass

Clark, R.C., Mayer, R.E., (Eds.) (2008). E-learning and the science of    instruction: proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multi-media learning. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.