Articles:Principles for Managing Essential Processing in Multimedia Learning: Segmenting, Pretraining, ad Modality Principles

From unthinkMedia

This articles looks at methods that recognize when learners do not have enough time to cognitively engage in the essential material of an activity, then their learning outcomes suffer.

Contents

concise narrated animation

This contains "only" essential material, which may include words and pictures that is necessary to understand the content. If this material is presented in fast rate essential overload could occur. No extraneous cognitive load.

essential overload

This occurs when the amount of essential processing associated to understanding a multimedia message is too much for the learners cognitive capacity, resulting in an overload.

3 methods to minimize essential overload

Segmenting Techniques

Multimedia should allow the user to pace the content.

Examples:

  • Breaking large animation into chunks of smaller animations. Could also add a "Continue" button on the bottom right.
  • Displaying a list of questions regarding content that will dispatch a short animation addressing the question.
Pretraining Techniques

We should introduce users of our medium to the names and characteristics of the main concepts being covered in the activity. This allows the learner to have schemas set in their prior knowledge that will allow them to use less cognitive effort in the animation.

Examples:

  • Two stage learning process
    1. Leaning names and behaviors of the main concept
    2. Learning there casual relationships
Modality Techniques

This technique suggest that content is learned more deeply when words are spoken rather then printed as text.

Examples:

  • present words as concurrent narration allowing learner to watch the content and listen to the verbal explanation.

Challenge

Instructional designers are challenged with crafting instructional experiences that work within the limitations of our working memory as described in the Cognitive Load Theory of Multimedia Learning

type 1

Problem:

  • Essential processing in both channels > cognitive capacity

Solution:

  • Segmenting
  • Pretraining

type 2

Problem:

  • Essential processing in visual channels > cognitive capacity

Solution:

  • Modality
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