Weekly Blog 2

Of the 3 principles of Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning we looked at this week, active processing stood out the most to me. An example is when we read our textbooks for a course we do not consume all of the information but instead filter what is not important out, selecting the information that is essential in learning the objectives, organizing it into subgroups to remember it, and integrating thatinformation to be recalled when needed and applied. 

Paivo’s Dual Coding Theory surprised me when it suggests that language and verbal information is not learned together with images but instead two different systems. This seems true when I tried watching a video on redundancy principle as opposed to reading it from Mayer’s “Principles for Reducing Extraneous Processing in Multimedia Learning, from The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning”. The 3-minute video helped process the information by already applying the Active Processing of the information from the text which takes substantially longer to read in order help students consume the information faster. However, will this in the long-term hinder the student’s ability to actively process information themselves when they are required to read text and not given the alternative of watching a summarized video?

All the reading/watch resources helped exemplify the extraneous load example by reducing the amount of information the audience consumes by having a short 2-minute video explain with both pictures, text and verbally of the four principles which helped reduce any unwanted information to be consumed. But again the question rises, will watching videos instead of reading text eventually cause a student to lose the ability to actively process information themselves?

References:

Mayer, R. E., & Fiorella, L. (2014). Principles for reducing extraneous processing in multimedia learning: Coherence, signaling, redundancy, spatial contiguity, and temporal contiguity. In R.E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 279-315). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.