Dr. Richard Mayer published a wonderful book in 2001 called Multimedia Learning. The third edition was released last year and masterfully builds on his initial premises through the lens of modern technology. The book adds a dimension to multimedia that you may not have ever considered – and it is a spectacular read.
Mayer’s goal is to transform how educators leverage multimedia in their practice; he wants to ensure that teachers foster meaningful learning which creates transferable knowledge (p. 20). One of the findings in Mayer’s research is that active learning is more effective than passive learning (though his interpretation of active learning – as you’ll see in a minute – may be different than commonly held beliefs). And before we go any further, it’s worth noting that in 2019 Harvard published a study that demonstrated students believe they learn better through lectures but actually learn better through active learning (once again affirming the “Illusion of Knowing” discussed in Make it Stick).
One way to encourage effective active learning is to design learning experiences that prime appropriate cognitive processing (p. 22). Consider the following two examples of students studying for an upcoming meteorology exam:
Alan sits in front of a computer and clicks on an interactive tutorial on lightning. The tutorial provides hands-on exercises in which he must fill in blanks by writing words. For example, on the screen appears the sentence: “Each year approximately _____ Americans are killed by lightning.” He types in an answer, and the computer then provides the correct answer. In this case, Alan is behaviorally active in that he is typing answers on the keyboard, but he may not be cognitively active in that he is not encouraged to make sense of the presented material.
Brian, who is also preparing for the same upcoming meteorology test. Like Alan, he sits in front of a computer and clicks on a tutorial about lightning; however, Brian’s tutorial is a short narrated animation explaining the steps in the lightning formation. As he watches and listens, Brian tries to focus on the essential steps in lightning formation and to organize them into a cause-and-effect chain. Wherever the multimedia presentation is unclear about why one step leads to another, Brian uses his prior knowledge to help create an explanation for himself – which can be called self-explanation. For example, when the narration says that positively charged particles move to the surface of the earth, Brian mentally creates the explanation that opposite charges attract. In this scenario, Brian is behaviorally inactive because he simply sits in front of the computer; however, he is cognitively active because he is actively trying to make sense of the presentation.
These dichotomy of these two experiences highlight different flavors of active learning. The twist is that an external observer may believe Alan – who is actively participating – is getting a better educational experience than Brian. Not so. Mayer’s point is that the multimedia experience must be student centered, not technology centered. Just because the LMS might include tools to make flashy study aids does not mean the experience is optimized for the student.
After all, “PowerPoint made it really easy to make really bad presentations really quickly,” is a fond saying of Ellen (the now retired multimedia specialist at Monroe Community College).
Mayer summarizes:
Research on learning shows that meaningful learning depends on the learner’s cognitive activity during learning rather than on the learner’s behavioral activity during learning. You might suppose that the best way to promote meaningful learning is through hands-on activity, such as a highly interactive multimedia program. However, behavioral activity per se does not guarantee cognitively active learning; it is possible to engage in hands-on activities that do not promote active cognitive processing, such as in the case of Alan or many highly interactive computer games and simulations. You might suppose that directly presenting material to a learner is not a good way to promote active learning because the learner appears to sit passively. In some situations, your intuitions would be right – presenting a long, incoherent, and boring lecture or a disorganized textbook chapter is unlikely to foster meaningful learning. However, in other situations, such as the case of Brian, learners can achieve meaningful learning in a behaviorally inactive environment, such as a multimedia instructional message. My point is that well-designed multimedia instructional messages can promote active cognitive processing in learners, even when learners seem to be behaviorally inactive (p. 21).
If this sounds applicable to the experiences you create for your students, you should definitely read the book; Mayer reviews fifteen principles of multimedia instructional design based on more than 200 experimental research studies.
