Week 3 Readings- How do people learn from e-Courses?

In reflection to Chapter 2: How Do People Learn from e-Courses? I would like to reflect on three main ideas I got from the reading that I thought Clark and Mayer did a good job discussing. The three things that I will discuss are the Principles and Process of Learning in particularly the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. Clark and Mayer point out that there are three main cognitive processes indicated by the arrows in figure 2.1 on page 35.

1. Selecting Words and Images- I believe this to be very important especially for students with disabilities that I teach. You have to find a way to make learning meaningful. Individuals must learn how to learn per say. Clark and Mayer explain you must "pay attention to relevant words and images in the presented material." As a teacher of students with disabilities I have to ensure that my students are identifying the key point and pictures to associate with the key points. If I do this they have a much better shot at building mental models through different levels of processing.

2. Organizing Words and Images- Clark and Mayer explain that the second step of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning is to "mentally organize the selected material in coherent verbal and pictorial representation. " For my students in order to ensure that they are going through the levels of processing the material it would be very beneficial for me to provide them with an advanced organizer so that once they can pull out the important images and and key words I can help them in the organizational process. For instance at the beginning of a Unit I would provide more support and as they unit went on less support for arranging the data would take place. This would provide for good informal assessment through teacher observation.

3. Integrating- I think when Clark and Mayer talk about integrating the knowledge they are really talking about how can the learner generalize the new material to existing knowledge or real world experiences. For a student with learning disabilities if you can provide them the ability to generalize the newly processed information to something they are comfortable with and already know we have a better chance of retention.

These are just a few of my thoughts from the week 3 readings. I look forward to reading about what the rest of you thought about the material.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2007). E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Pfeiffer.