I find the signaling principle in Mayer’s theory of multimedia learning very natural and it makes a lot of sense to me. When I watch videos or read an article, I find it a lot easier when there are signs or bold letters that guide me though the contents. The feature helps me engaged. This principle is also what I had in mind when I create the screencast because I noticed that when I refer to something, I need to signal the piece I am referring to. Otherwise it would be difficult for the viewers to find what I am talking about among a whole screen of information.
The one that surprised me the most was actually the redundancy principle. I understand and being concise is good but I have always thought that providing more information in a learning content is good.
The videos presented that talks about the principles in the Read/Watch resources exemplify the Coherence Principle really well. Each video talks about one principle and focus on this principle giving its definition and examples. And the four videos together illustrate Mayer’s Principles which makes it coherent and focused.
4 Responses to “Week 2 Post: How Do We Learn?”
I’m not the only one surprised by Mayer’s theory of redundancy in multimedia learning. I quite agree with you, and I also think it is good to have enough knowledge covered in the learning content. I can understand the theory of redundancy as a way of avoiding repetition or superfluous information in a text. Most of the time, there is no redundant or repetitive information in the learning slides. Oversimplified content will make learners think that there is not much content in this part when they review. This will cause the learner to lose many important points.
In my opinion, the redundancy principle is more likely to enhance the learner’s efficiency. The redundancy principle emphasizes reducing repetitive or unimportant content more than more information.
When too much redundant information is wrapped around the core content, learners need to filter out the repetitive or insignificant information, which reduces the learner’s efficiency and creates an unnecessary additional load.
I agree with your opinion about the Mayer’s theory in study. I can feel the difference even between the change of several medias in the reading material. For example, I will feel confused if I need a lot of content in the textbook, there is no highlight of sentience to remind me which one is the most important; and for some abstract contend, it is so difficult to imagine without any examples. But if we can compare with a diagram inside the textbooks, it is much easier for us to observe the change of many unclear factors we are not familiar with, it is much better to have a media like video within the contend, which helps most of us to understand one new concrete in a very short time.
Hi Qiaoyang,
Thank you for sharing your blog with us. I agree with you on Mayer’s theory of multimedia learning, and the redundancy principle also surprised me. I have always know that the more concise the content the better, but I still add a lot of text to each of my PowerPoint/post. However, through this week’s learning and experience, I have to say that the redundancy principle does improve student learning. With a concise lesson plan, students can quickly catch the important content to be learnt.