Harmon - Week 3 Readings - How People Learn

Overall, I thought this chapter was a great review of learning theory, it seemed to pack many of the key elements of learning theory into one concise chapter. Although if you were not previously acquainted with learning theory it might prove to be a bit difficult to decipher some of what the authors are talking about. The end of the chapter also provided a good, general overview on research and statistics; however both of these subjects, like theories of learning, were covered in-depth in previous EdTech courses.

Two things that I liked in this chapter were the emphasis on the role of the learner and the discussion of "Las Vegas Style Media". I appreciated that the authors put emphasis on the importance of the learner taking an active role in their learning by consciously engaging in cognitive processing, I think the importance of the learner being actively involved in the learning is sometimes overlooked. Also, I liked the term "Las Vegas Style Media" because that phrase conjures exactly the right mental image, a glitzy, showy, bright, garish webpage which can quickly lead to cognitive overload.

The statement I found most helpful from an instructional design point of view was the statement on page 37 that instructional designers must "create learning environments that minimize extraneous cognitive processing, manage essential processing and foster generative processing." I found this to be a good perspective on the goal of instructional design, to encourage learners to understand new material and connect the new material to prior knowledge and not distract learners from the material with "Las Vegas Style Media".

Finally, I thought the section on Directing Selection of Important Information was brief yet important because as an online learner I am greatly aided by an arrow or colored box to draw my eye to important information. Also, the section on Methods for Integration contained important information about how integrating words and images properly aides learning and decreases cognitive overload.