Book Review

e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning, 4th Edition

Book Summary: 4^th Edition

The proven guidelines for e-learning include present content with text, graphics and audio to design and improve the learning experience in the virtual classroom, and to use personalized techniques, coherence, and now, animations for evidence based design theory. The engaged learner uses worked examples, independent practice, online collaboration in the form of discussions and blogs, is provided affordance to ensure cultural diversity, student autonomy, and professional leadership by professors and the administration of the university.

This book provides the evidence-based guidelines for e-learning and psychological theory which has shaped the design, development and evaluation for workforce learning. The human learning process includes the environment, the modeled behavior and the innate person. We need a social learning process which embodies the intrinsic motivational factors of the student in pursuit (Goulimaris, 2015).

Human Learning Processes

            Self-study asynchronous learning enables the learner to customize the materials to meet their unique needs and learning styles. This unique engagement creates a link between behavioral and psychological instructional engagements. In the virtual classroom, a behavioral engagement means the overt action a student takes when engaged with the content (Clark & Mayers, 2016). This includes navigating the material and discussions in the virtual classroom: using next keys, replying in response boxes, selecting items from a menu, submit buttons, and multiple-choice menus for quizzes and tests etc. The psychological engagement is the cognitive process, which leads to the acquisition of new knowledge by: reading the relevant materials, mentally organizing the content into coherent representations, integrating the material to solve current trends and issues, and demonstrating higher order thinking that uses prior knowledge to link concepts (Clark & Mayer, 2016).

In e-learning, the psychological methods to support the learning modalities of the students include adding relevant-visuals, videos, creating discussion forums for reflection, and including books or artifacts the students will need to have access to during the course or module.

Multimedia: Chapter 11

Text, audio, and motion visuals are a way of communicating ideas and concepts to the learner. The idea is that by allowing the student to access these mediums for learning, the student will accelerate in learning and have a greater ability to identify their own learning modality. Students must then begin to learn how to find credible resources that will have an academic impact and to build critical thinking and application skills (Clark & Mayer, 2016). The goal is to get students engaged with workforce related trends, opportunities and problem-solving the challenges they face. Here are some of the examples used as multimedia (Clark & Mayers, 2016):

1.     Animations- to illustrate hands-on procedures

2.     Complex animations- visual cues to direct the learners attention

3.     Organizational graphics – used to show relationships of different parts in a whole structure

4.     Relational graphics- used to show quantitative relationships among variables

5.     Transformational graphics: a video tutorial

6.     Interpretive graphics – static frames or images to explain how something works

7.     Graphics – used as an interface in a course or study  

Does Practice make perfect?

We cannot forget that learning can be constructed through gaming engagements. The approach is called gamification and the can help learners identify with the characters, be active problem-solvers in game challenges, accumulate mastery of different terminology used throughout the game, work towards a large goal through a variety of subtasks, and also see direct results for their efforts from built in progress tracking systems.

E-learning offers the user a level of control over the content which also results in higher outcomes of exploratory efforts that are restricted in a brick and mortar classroom. This is the “pure discovery learning theory.” The pit fall of exploratory learning is that instructors have less control over the student and this lead the student away from the objective instead of closer to it.

Reflection:

Cost savings are an illusion if the instructional design does not effectively build knowledge and skills needed for desired job outcomes (Clark and Mayer, 2016). The instructional design approach for e-learning has to also consider the rate of technology change. It matters a great deal to the student who is looking for flexibility to have ease of access. I want to add that the student may need some time adjusting to the use of technology to access the content of the class. We must look at the student demographic in distant education for adult learners and understand that not all users will have the same technology skills.

The human learning process has allowed for instructional designers to focus their efforts on differentiated instruction that reaches a broad spectrum of learning modalities. Designers must factor into the lesson that some students will not benefit from an abundance of material, thus being selective will help students tailor their exploratory research appropriately.

We must also consider from the reading, the pacing of e-learning. Students have access to all the course material at the beginning of the course, with the exception of live sessions that take place via webcam or collaborative work spaces; this does not mean students will be diligent and timely about pacing their own learning. Life events will factor into how students structure and schedule time to study. As Clark and Mayer (2016) have demonstrated, instructional design management is to keep the student’s sights on the objective goals. Designers reinforce the context with current trends and issues in society and make culturally relevant and diverse-learning-materials available for students to broaden their world view and elevate their conceptual understanding for later application in the workforce.

The misconceptions in e-learning is that students do less work. That is quite the contrary to my personal experience. My first lesson was understanding my own learning modality and recognizing how to foster that alongside the materials provided in the course. I also had to evaluate my intrinsic motivations as a learner and constantly look toward the end goal when life challenges and subsequent events threatened to stand in the way. The reading material doubled because I had to read all emails, announcements, module lesson plans, syllabus, as well as the material assigned in the class. It was not easy making that adjustment, however, I learned a lot about who I am, and Liberty allowed me the affordance to shine as an individual, as a Christian, as a constructivist learner.

Q & A

Q. Why is this point important?

A. When designing e-learning instruction, it is important to offer a variety of media for students to view in order to bring value to the objective.

Q. Did it change your views or ideas about educational technology or distance education or instructional design?

 

 A. Yes, I have to consider how to use relevant technology to reach students that is not so new students cannot access it, but that is also not obsolete.

Q.How is this point relevant to your ISD project?

 A. This book makes me reconsider how much detail needs to be used when developing the ISD project.

Q. How is this point relevant to you and what you plan to do after graduation?

 A. I read this book for the purpose of future curriculum and instructional design, in a career as an online course facilitator.

References:

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-Learning and the science of instruction: proven                            guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (4th ed.).

Goulimaris, D. (2015). The relation between distance education students’ motivation and                        satisfaction. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 16(2), 13-28.                                 doi:10.17718/tojde.50678