Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Cognitive Load Research: interesting, but how big a help is it, really?
Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design; Sweller et. als
Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning; Mayer & Moreno
The research on Cognitive Architecture and Cognitive load make it seem easy to dissect learning materials. The problem is that it doesn't enable us understand the big picture. It's great to know how to best place pictures in reference to describing text, and how/ why we need to present chunks of knowledge to learners. But how should we create a curriculum or even something as small as a single lesson. And consider the following: "Ideal instructional designs may be heavily dependent on instructors accurately assessing their student' levels of expertise" (p.285). Do designers ever really get a chance to assess learners' levels of expertise? And if they did get the opportunity for accurate assessment? It's unlikely that the target audience, as a group, will have levels of expertise similar enough that the designer will be able to develop a single curriculum to address their needs?
Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning; Mayer & Moreno
The research on Cognitive Architecture and Cognitive load make it seem easy to dissect learning materials. The problem is that it doesn't enable us understand the big picture. It's great to know how to best place pictures in reference to describing text, and how/ why we need to present chunks of knowledge to learners. But how should we create a curriculum or even something as small as a single lesson. And consider the following: "Ideal instructional designs may be heavily dependent on instructors accurately assessing their student' levels of expertise" (p.285). Do designers ever really get a chance to assess learners' levels of expertise? And if they did get the opportunity for accurate assessment? It's unlikely that the target audience, as a group, will have levels of expertise similar enough that the designer will be able to develop a single curriculum to address their needs?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Bransford Chapters Response
How People Learn:
Chapter 6: The Design of Learning Environments
Chapter 9: Technology to Support Learning
On the plus side, these chapters are easy reads. On the minus side, they seem like a great deal of fluff to me. Reading these chapters was kinda like reading a brochure. I felt like Bransford provided an extremely superficial view of learning environments and the technology to support them. And if I'd like to know more, I'd need to call some 800 number and talk to a sales associate.
"Initially, teachers working with the Jasper Woodbury playground adventure (described above) had trouble finding time to give students feedback about their playground designs, but a simple computer interface cut in half the time it took teachers to provide feedback (see, e.g., Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1997)."
Well... it's great that the interface cut response time in half... but what the heck was the interface like?! Did and how did they provide feedback BEFORE the interface?!
I'm guessing the purpose of the book was to provide a superficial overview of the learning process... but I just didn't feel I getting the whole picture - even on a superficial level.
Chapter 6: The Design of Learning Environments
Chapter 9: Technology to Support Learning
On the plus side, these chapters are easy reads. On the minus side, they seem like a great deal of fluff to me. Reading these chapters was kinda like reading a brochure. I felt like Bransford provided an extremely superficial view of learning environments and the technology to support them. And if I'd like to know more, I'd need to call some 800 number and talk to a sales associate.
"Initially, teachers working with the Jasper Woodbury playground adventure (described above) had trouble finding time to give students feedback about their playground designs, but a simple computer interface cut in half the time it took teachers to provide feedback (see, e.g., Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1997)."
Well... it's great that the interface cut response time in half... but what the heck was the interface like?! Did and how did they provide feedback BEFORE the interface?!
I'm guessing the purpose of the book was to provide a superficial overview of the learning process... but I just didn't feel I getting the whole picture - even on a superficial level.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
The Costs of This Article Seem to Outweigh the Benefits.
Design Issues for Learning Environments by Allan Collins
Gotta say that I found this paper to be the most laborious we've read. Not because it has the most difficult content, but because it could have been written more succintly if he utilized an outline or bullets.
I'm not sure if Collins intended to guide the reader into making decisions based on the costs an benefits. Sometimes he noted his preferences, other times he didn't. If he intended to simply present the costs and benefits and leave the decision making to the reader, he should have been consistant about this.
Another irritant of the article (for me) was that Collins frequently referred to other software, but explained so little about the software that I failed to grasp the connection. It seems the intended audience was already familiar with the software he referred to.
That said, I generally agreed with the costs/benefits that Collins articulated. I do wish, however, a more current article could have been assigned so that we'd have the opportunity to relate to his examples.
Gotta say that I found this paper to be the most laborious we've read. Not because it has the most difficult content, but because it could have been written more succintly if he utilized an outline or bullets.
I'm not sure if Collins intended to guide the reader into making decisions based on the costs an benefits. Sometimes he noted his preferences, other times he didn't. If he intended to simply present the costs and benefits and leave the decision making to the reader, he should have been consistant about this.
Another irritant of the article (for me) was that Collins frequently referred to other software, but explained so little about the software that I failed to grasp the connection. It seems the intended audience was already familiar with the software he referred to.
That said, I generally agreed with the costs/benefits that Collins articulated. I do wish, however, a more current article could have been assigned so that we'd have the opportunity to relate to his examples.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
User-Centered Design
Design of Everyday Things
So much of this article made me think back to the challenges we faced at the educational software company where I used to work. I worked primarily with the manager, the company's proprietary learning management system that was integrated with our curriculum. The manager was a fairly complex piece of software that teachers and lab instructors utilized to get infomation about student progress.
In designing (and redesigning) the manager we tried to make the system usable for the instructors, but the funny thing is... it couldn't be too usable. Norman writes "Any necessary instruction or training should be needed only once..."(p 188). We tried to simplify and standardize the user interface, but we were often reminded that usability should not be our top priority. Making the program run smoothly wasn't the only reason for this. As a company we earned some of our revenue from training hours. This was the reason the system couldn't be too friendly. Makes me wonder how many other applications are created with training in mind.
So much of this article made me think back to the challenges we faced at the educational software company where I used to work. I worked primarily with the manager, the company's proprietary learning management system that was integrated with our curriculum. The manager was a fairly complex piece of software that teachers and lab instructors utilized to get infomation about student progress.
In designing (and redesigning) the manager we tried to make the system usable for the instructors, but the funny thing is... it couldn't be too usable. Norman writes "Any necessary instruction or training should be needed only once..."(p 188). We tried to simplify and standardize the user interface, but we were often reminded that usability should not be our top priority. Making the program run smoothly wasn't the only reason for this. As a company we earned some of our revenue from training hours. This was the reason the system couldn't be too friendly. Makes me wonder how many other applications are created with training in mind.
