IT 5130: More Thoughts on Mayer’s Book

I’ve continued to read Mayer’s book Multimedia Learning and want to try to capture what I read this week (chapter 3 and 4).

Mayer makes three assumptions:

• Humans possess separate information processing channels for visually represented material and auditorily represented material. (p.46)
• Humans are limited in the amount of information that can be processed in each channel at one time. (p.48)
• Humans actively engage in cognitive processing to construct a coherent mental representation on their experiences. (p.50)

He says that three cognitive processes are involved in Active Learning:

• Selecting relevant material (words and images)
• Organizing selected material(words and images)
• Integrating selected material with existing knowledge (word-based and image-based representations) (p. 52)

We should present words and pictures rather than words alone. A multimedia presentation guides the learner to build a verbal mental model and a pictorial mental model, and to build connections between the two. (p.69)

Meaningful learning occurs when learners build picture-based and word-based representations and build systematic connections between them.(p.79) It is our job to help guide the learner’s cognitive processing of the presented material, so we should ask ourselves which which instructional techniques help guide the learners’ cognitive processing of the presented material. Learners will come away with a better understanding of the material (better transfer occurs) if you do this.