The article basically summarized a lot of information we learned in Educational Psychology. Some basic information you should probably take away: text and visual are better together, cone of learning is a myth, three types of memory: sensory, working, and long term, students learn more when the activity is personally meaningful, and significant increases in learning can occur through informed use of visual and verbal multimodal learning.
I think learning can increase greatly by including multimedia tools and resources. Students can better connect lessons when they are personal and meaningful. Multimedia can provide a foundation for this type of building. The important factor when including multimedia in a lesson is the purpose. If the lesson just has it to use it, the lesson will not work. The multimedia needs to enhance the lesson to create a purpose. You are not going to remember the power point your teach use to read from, but you will remember dissecting a frog using a simulation.
I would try to use mostly interactive tools and resources. Students would probably rather do things themselves versus watching the teacher. Hands on learning is very helpful and multimedia tools can help provide students with opportunities to try things for themselves. As an English teacher, including interactive resources may be difficult. I will try my best, however, to find ways to get my students involved.
Using multimedia tools and resources can be time consuming. The teacher has to figure out the technology then scaffold it for the students. With trying to teach all the required material plus technology extras, the teacher could run themselves ragged if not done effectively. I do think it is probably worth it in the long run with proper planning.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree with Katlin that multimedia is not helpful simply for on its own merits- used correctly and meaningfully it can be a great tool, but when not it is just as boring and non-helpful as a 50 minute lecture in a monotone voice. The article did give some helpful tips as to how to present multimedia well. For instance, the article suggested that visual presentations with one or two words of simultaneous, proximal text along with narration is an effective way to use multimedia. Also, a key point is that to learn we need to pay attention to what we want to remember so when using multimedia all extraneous components should be removed.
ReplyDeleteI thought the quadrants graphic was really helpful. It reiterated what was said earlier in the article, that collaborative and highly interactive activities are good sometimes and sometimes individual, drill type learning is more effective. The main thing I took away from this graphic is that one students just need to get some basic information and memorize some basic facts, reading, individual learning, and direct instruction are best. When students need to expand and understand concepts and make conclusions, collaborative work and interactive activities serve them better.
I agree that multimedia for its own sake is not an effective learning tool. I learn more by talking, reading, writing, and actively participating. When professors use PowerPoint presentations and lecture from them I have to write down what is on the slides or I won't learn anything. The cone of learning concept I found almost laughable. Maybe that's how most people operate, but I'm very forgetful and have a difficult time recalling activities even when they're hands on. Learning needs to be a memorable experience so what we teach stays with our students, stored in the long-term memory.
ReplyDeleteAs teachers we need to use a variety of multimedia because we are going to have classes of students who learn differently. I may rely on direct instruction, lecture and discussion, but, like Erin, I might use interactive activities and technology when doing larger units over big concepts, such as the Civil War or the Roman Empire.
I think one major way of getting students to learn the material is to get them involved in the material. If students enjoy cinema, don't simply have them watch a movie on some historical period, have them create one. The pyramids from the beginning of this article show very distinctly that getting the students involved will help them retain the information longer. For students such as myself who don't do well simply reading from a book, having them use multimedia and other mediums to get them involved is a great way to help the students advance not only in the subject they are involved in, but also the medium. As they learn new skills, they become more eager to apply the tools to the subject area.
ReplyDeletePowerPoints are great for giving brief overviews, but multimedia has so many different aspects to it, that it would be a shame to use the same medium in every class. The students need variety in order to keep them interested in the subject. Students will be more inclined to do pay attention and care if they see that you've put in the effort to do something to get them involved and not simply lecture at them.
I think Katlin brings out two key ideas - first that the use of multimedia has to be purposeful and support teaching/learning and that using more interactive technologies can be very time-consuming. These two ideas, taken together, would suggest that the teacher should carefully choose when to use technology to help ensure that the extra time and effort is "worth it."
ReplyDeleteAmanda brings up the key importance of learner differences. Even if for the "average" student, interactive multimedia is helpful for teaching higher order thinking concepts, it doesn't mean it's true for every student. This suggests that we need to be conscious of "mixing up" our learning activities (over time) to help ensure that we're meeting the needs of all our students.
I am currently taking a class called "How Students Learn", and this paper directly correlates with everything we have talked about in that class so far. Our brains do not work to "multi-task", so we cannot ask students to do things like read slides, listen to lectures, and write their own notes all at the same time. Tying together what I have learned in "How Students Learn" and from reading this article has been very informative. I've always thought of Powerpoints as being a great teaching tool, but they aren't necessarily. Leaving a slide up for students to read and copy, while the teacher just stands there and talks later would be very boring. Realizing this makes me think that I may need to change some of my approaches to teaching and become aware that just because something is the typical, doesn't mean it's the best. Using pictures and visuals in a lecture or Powerpoint presentation, as we discussed in a previous class, is also relevant to this article. Knowing students learn better from pictures and visuals than just text alone is also very helpful for my future teaching.
ReplyDelete