Week 11-Blog 6

Clark & Mayer: Chapters 7-9, 14

            After reading Clark & Mayer’s (2003) book, I had no idea how much thought went into designing e-learning; but it all makes sense now.  I compare it to after my husband became a City Planner: I didn’t realize that every little detail, down to park benches, light posts, garbage cans, and signs were carefully placed and planned according to city ordinances.  I remember my husband going round and round with businesses over the square feet of their signs and that no LED lights could be used.  Who would have thought? 

            I feel like Clark & Mayer’s (2003) book has helped me a great deal think about how to design an e-learning program; things that I did not think were relevant before reading this book.  I thought that in order to make programs more interesting, there had to be some “flare” to the screen, like extra pictures or funny statements.  However, after reading Chapter 7, I realize that I was completely wrong and I was actually depressing learning.  The Coherence Principle states that one should exclude extraneous information in the form of: 1) entertaining stories related but not essential to the instructional objective, 2) background music and sounds added for motivation, and 3) detailed textual descriptions (Clark & Mayer, 2003).  This unnecessary material can depress the learning process by distraction, disruption, and seduction of the learner (Clark & Mayer, 2003).  Background music and sound can overload the working memory, therefore the learner may experience heavy cognitive load and learning will be depressed (Clark & Mayer, 2003).  I like the example of the arousal theory, that emotion affects cognition and learners will learn more from multimedia presentations that include sounds and music (Clark & Mayer, 2003).  Clark & Mayer (2003) counter this theory with John Dewey’s rationale that adding interesting adjuncts to an otherwise boring lesion will not promote deeper learning.  How true!  Adding extra pictures and graphics on the screen could also depress learning, especially if only used for decoration and have no connection to the content being presented.  Again, Clark & Mayer (2003, p.121) state John Dewey’s argument that interest cannot be added to an otherwise boring lesson and; “adding extraneous pictures can interfere with the process of sense-making because learners have a limited cognitive capacity for processing incoming material.”  Adding extraneous words to lessons may also result in poorer learning and Clark & Mayer (2003) state to stick to basic and concise descriptions of the content to promote learning of the target material.

            Chapter 8 describes applying the Personalization Principle: that writing in a conversational style of writing that uses first and second person language will induce the learner to engage with the computer as a social partner resulting in instruction that resembles human-to-human conversation (Clark & Mayer, 2003).  Using words like “you” and “I” can be a way to prime appropriate cognitive processing in the learner (Clark & Mayer, 2003).  Clark & Mayer (2003) also warn not make the conversation too informal because that could distract the learner; one should write with sufficient informality.  After reading the examples that were provided, I could certainly tell the difference between writing formally and informally; I preferred the informal writing because it made the directions seem easier to follow.  I had to re-read the formal directions a few times to understand exactly what I was supposed accomplish.  Clark & Mayer (2003) also talk about pedagogical agents, or onscreen coaches.  The evidence and research presented support the use of a pedagogical agent in e-learning and Clark & Mayer (2003, p. 144) suggest, “that the agents words be presented as speech rather than text, in conversational style rather than formal style, and with human-like rather than machine-like articulation.”  I remember when I bought my very first computer in undergraduate school and I think I bought Word 1998; the little “paperclip” cartoon would emerge on the screen and ask if you need help.  He communicated through text and he would knock on your screen to get your attention.  I did think he was pretty helpful when I first started using Word, but after awhile, I was like, “okay, you can go away now!”  Good thing there was the option of turning him off; but he was helpful when you needed him.

            Chapter 9 describes the design, layout, and frequency of effective practice in e-learning.  I thought this was a good chapter because I often thought that games like Jeopardy would be something fun for learners, but in fact, it was not promoting psychological engagement in which learners are not selecting, integrating, and retrieving new knowledge; the learner is simply recognizing or recalling information that will not promote learning that will transfer to the job (Clark & Mayer, 2003).  Clark & Mayer (2003, pp.152-153) recommend four guidelines for effective practice in e-learning:

1.   Interactions should mirror the thinking processes and environment of the job.

2.  Better learning results from more practice questions interspersed throughout the lesson.

3.   Practice questions should be formatted to be consistent with the media elements principles summarized in Chapters Three through Eight.

4.  Learners should be trained to provide their own questions when they are studying from receptive (expository) materials.

The content that I found the most interesting in this chapter is the relationship between practice and expertise: “skill development and expertise are strongly related to the time and efficiency of deliberate practice...the more a person practices, the better he or she gets regardless of initial talent and ability (Clark & Mayer, 2003, p. 162).  This section made me hopeful that my running, specifically my speed, would improve with more and more practice. Ha!  I also realized a mistake I made in an interactive quiz I developed within a PowerPoint presentation that I presented last semester after reading this chapter: the directions, question, response, and feedback should be provided on the same screen.  I had the directions, question, and responses on one screen, but when the learner clicked on the right or wrong answer, it hyperlinked them to another screen with feedback.  Now I know that I need to design my quizzes differently after reading this book!

            Chapter 14 is good summary of everything that we have read throughout the chapters and Clark & Mayer (2003) do a good job of providing an outline and describing four examples of e-learning programs and how they would change the designs based on their guidelines.  This chapter helped to pulled the concepts together and apply them to real e-learning programs. I like the summary of guidelines provided on p.274-277; I have all the elements in one section for easy reference.

            This has been a pretty rough couple of months for me personally.  Our dog of 12 years passed away in March and now my Aunt is in hospice dying of terminal cancer.  She was diagnosed in March and the doctors’ gave her up to six months to live without chemotherapy and 3 years with chemotherapy.  So, I thought that I would go up to Minnesota to visit with her after this semester, in May, but her condition has drastically changed in the past week and her cancer is far more spread than realized.  I am devastated that I will not be able to see her before she passes away, which will be any day now.  I hope to make it to her funeral, but I am beyond stressed with three classes and multiple projects.  Thankfully I have a good support system and I know that I will make it through the last couple of weeks.

Reference:

Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R.E. (2003). e-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.