This Sunday is Valentine’s Day, a day where we talk about love, and give cards, flowers, and chocolates. But where did this holiday come from? Here is a 5:30 minute video that’s will give you the full history going back to ancient Rome. So as we think about Valentines Day and school, how do we …
Category: Learning Theory
Mar 13
Moving to Remote Teaching Quickly
Resources From friend and Instructional Designer Kristen Bourgault: The following resources offer useful suggestions for educators who are being asked to quickly move into the online environment in response to school closures. IDEAS FOR REACHING OUT TO STUDENTS How to Outreach Online StudentsVery quick, straightforward, one-page list with tips for reaching out to students in …
Feb 28
Making Knowledge Stick
Today I wanted to share information about making information “stick” with your students. Here are two ways of doing this. The first is repeating the information – a lot. The second is to attach the information to something your students already know. Here is what behavioral psychologist Dr. Susan Weinschenk has written in her book …
Dec 06
12. Image Principle
The Image Principle says that people do not necessarily learn better from a multimedia lesson when the speaker’s image is added to the screen. This is definitely an area that needs more research. So what are the pros and cons of adding the speaker’s image? On one hand, we know how important teacher presence is. …
Nov 27
11. Voice Principle
Last week we looked at the Personalization Principle, and found that a speaker with a conversational style will have more impact on learning than a formal style presentation. Today we are going to dive into this a bit more with the voice principle. The Voice Principle means that we learn more deeply when being spoken …
Nov 22
10. Personalization Principle
The Personalization Principle means that conversational style is better than formal style. Below is a video to introduce you to the principle – The first part of the video will make you want to turn it off, but keep watching – it starts with what not to do!! When we are teaching, whether we think …
Nov 15
9. Multimedia Principle
The Multimedia Principle means that “words and pictures” are better than words alone. There has been a lot of research in this area, and it has been found that learners do, in fact, gain more knowledge with words and pictures than if they were just presented with words alone. With computing power that has gotten …
Nov 08
8. Modality Principle
Last week we talked about the Pre-Training principle, and this week we look into another principle that will help us with essential processing. The Modality Principle means that “graphics and narration” are better than “graphics and text.” Here is a video that explains the Modality principle. If you only get one thing out of today’s …
Nov 01
7. Pre-Training Principle
The Pre-Training Principle means that we need to pre-teach key concepts for better understanding. What this means is that learners actually learn better and more deeply if they already know the names and characteristics of the subject. So, why is this important? We again look at working memory, and the capacity of the brain to …
Oct 25
6. Segmenting Principle
Over the last few weeks we have looked at techniques for reducing extraneous processing by our learners. This week we start to look at essential processing, and how we make that better. The first principle to do this is the Segmenting Principle. The Segmenting Principle means that user-paced segments are better than continuous presentation. You …