learn.5tein.com Jared Stein's grad-school-community blog on teaching and learning.

IPT 564 Readings on Multimedia and Time on Task

This is a short post on this week's readings.

Mayer, Richard. (1997). Multimedia learning: Are we asking the right questions? Educational Psychologist 31(1), 1-19.

Today we may take multimedia learning for granted, as the advent of more powerful hardware and software has facilitated the production of multimedia by non-programmers, and the Web has made available whole repositories of professional and amateur multimedia resources. It is clear that Mayer does not take it for granted, but astutely notes that "the technology for multimedia education is developing at a faster pace than a corresponding science of how people learn in multimedia environments."

In this review of multimedia learning implementations students generated more creative solutions, and were able to transfer the information successfully. Mayer notes that this "multimedia effect" is most beneficial "for low prior knowledge and high spatial ability students". This is not a simple "media effect", which compares mode of delivery and presumes a knowledge acquisition metaphor.

On the first day of class we identified the ability to transfer knowledge from situation to situation, even from domain to domain. Mayer begins by recognizing this critical ability in science education, and focuses on a "generative" theory of multimedia learning that focuses on the users active selection and integration of multiple media, and includes the cognitivist concept of dual-coding theory, which posits that verbal and non-verbal information is coded separately in the brain (the implication being that activation of both tends to result in better long term memory than activation of one). Though 12 years old now, this particular article appears to be reinforced by more recent work by cognitive scientists--the work I'm most familiar with is reading, and Dehaene's neural recycling hypothesis and investigation of serial and parallel processing in reading alone.

Mayer, Richard & Moreno, Roxana. (1998). A split-attention effect in multimedia learning: Evidence for dual processing systems in working memory. Journal of Educational Psychology 90(2), 312-320.

In this article Mayer and Moreno expand on the role of dual-coding/dual-processing as relates to educational use of multimedia. The research study compares use of visual info combined with audio narration vs visual info combined with text. Mayer and Moreno determined that learners can integrate words and pictures more easily when the words are
presented auditorily rather than visually. This is due to the fact that visual text combined with visual images splits the attention of the learner--the titular split-attention effect.

This reminds me of Clark, Nguyen, and Sweller's book, Efficiency in Learning, which provides research and applications for cognitive load theory as it applies to use of text, visual, and audio.

US Department of Education (2009). Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies.

This meta-analysis of empirical research comparing online education experiences with traditional face-to-face experiences found that of 51 comparisons, "11 were significantly positive, favoring the online or blended learning condition" while 2 favored face-to-face. The authors noted (1) these results are probably not a feature of the media (but rather time spent learning, and (2) they are less likely to be useful for K-12, as "Few rigorous research studies of the effectiveness of online learning for K–12 students have been published."

In considering the blending of online and face-to-face, or "hybrid" courses, the authors write:

The first of the alternatives to classroom-based instruction, entirely online instruction, is attractive on the basis of cost and convenience as long as it is as effective as classroom instruction. The second alternative, which the online learning field generally refers to as blended or hybrid learning, needs to be more effective than conventional face-to-face instruction to justify the additional time and costs it entails

Though I wouldn't discount reasons of convenience for hybrid learning, the key factor to promote hybrid learning from an institutional perspective is probably not effectiveness, but the lessened impact on more static campus resources such as physical space. I've also seen consideration for hybrid learning driven by enthusiasm of both teacher and learner to explore new technologies.

Berliner, David C. (1990). What's All the Fuss About Instructional Time? From "The Nature of Time in Schools: Theoretical Concepts, Practitioner Perceptions".

Berliner defends the concept of instructional time, which "allows for understanding, prediction, and control". Instructional time is categorized as allocated time, engaged time, time-on-task, academic learning time, transition time, waiting time, aptitude, perseverance, and pace. These categories are viewed as variables that allow us to employ understanding, prediction, and control. Berliner notes that we've often taken instructional time as an obvious necessity, but his use of applications of instructional time to various learning models such as Bloom's Mastery Learning ("At the heart of mastery is the belief that with sufficient time to learn and with high quality instruction, virtually all students can learn what only a small number were able to learn under traditional instruction.") suggest that we haven't been paying enough attention to instructional time's value or impact. (Though I highlight the Bloom example, it's important to remember that time is only one half of Mastery Learning; the other half is "high quality instruction", which Bloom defines specifically as a iterative process based on formative feedback.) The concept of "aptitude" also resonates with Bloom's 2-sigma problem, which suggests that unlike our traditional view of aptitude, a time-focused definition of aptitude allows for all learners to succeed--given the right environment and sufficient time.

IPT 564 Readings on Spacing Effect

Notes on assigned readings on spacing effect:

Dempster, The Spacing Effect

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system

Dempster's article addresses possible issues that may have restricted or inhibited the classroom application of research on the spacing effect.

The Leitner System describes a method of spaced repetition in flashcard practice that has been adopted by many flashcard software. In it's simplest form the system presumes known items require less practice, and unknown items require more. Learning time is saved by moving occurrence of known items "farther" from the user in the repetition pattern. A simple example uses 3 boxes that may be spaced for practice 1, 3, and 5 days, with unknown in the first box, and known words moving back a box each time they are correctly identified.

I don't know whether this shows how smart I was in school, or how dumb: I never used flashcards. I never thought I needed to. And so the idea of spaced repetition and the identification of a spacing effect was new to me, and not immediately obvious as I think Tyler pointed out on his blog. Though I haven't used flashcards in the past, recently I've discovered an application for flashcards (this may be because I'm getting older, or I have actual need of specific information on the fly beyond acing a test, or whatever) in writing metrical poetry. As Daniel Willingham explains, sufficient background knowledge is not just important to help one understand new information, it's important in formulating creative solutions to problems. With respect to metrical poetry, without an extensive "vocabulary" of poesis, I lack a sufficient range of tools with which to tackle a poetic "problem"--meters, rhythms, rhyme schemes, and forms. And it's not just being able to define these forms, it's knowing examples of these forms, and why particular examples are relevant to the form itself, so that, as a writer, one can draw upon knowledge of possible effects of various forms as one tries to create one's own effects. Both the vocabulary of poesis and examples of forms are, to me, excellent topics for flashcards.

Cepeda, Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis

Cepeda et al's quantitative review (this is different from a meta-analysis how?) focuses on 184 articles covering 317 experiments that test the effect of interstudy interval (ISI) upon learning. This review focuses on verbal memory tasks because they have been used in the greatest number of studies on distributed practice (and perhaps, as the authors imply, because verbal memory tasks seem to respond the best to ISI). The results of this review suggest "spaced presentations led to markedly better final-test performance, compared with massed presentations". The conclusions regarding lag analysis are harder to articulate in summary, so I'll just quote the authors wholesale:

...synthetic analyses support the robustness and generality of ISI and retention internal joing effects... the literature as a whole reflects nonmonotonic effect of absolute ISI upon memory performance at a given interval, as well as the positive relationship between retention interval and the optimal absolute ISI value for that retention interval.

Of interest to those looking into the Leitner system, this review also found that, "overall, expanding ISIs led to better performance than fixed intervals" (364). It doesn't appear that this review examined the efficiency of expanding ISIs, which is of particular interest to me.

Keller, How to integrate learner motivation planning into lesson planning: The ARCS model approach

IPT 564 Readings on Memory and Forgetting

I had to catch up and post something on this week's readings on memory and forgetting, though I had read all or part of the following previously.

Ebbinghaus (1885) Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology

Ebbinghaus's book-length treatment of the subject is surely included here because it is a groundbreaking work, a classic often referred to in educational theory and research courses which contains some findings still relevant and sound today. Ebbinghaus studied memory and learning and conducted learning experiments on himself which involved the random, nonsense syllables. He first documented the Forgetting Curve which suggests that most forgetting occurs quickly and exponentially.

However, Ebbinghaus found that practice (both massed and distributed) affects learning/forgetting, as does regency or primacy of items. Ebbinghaus's concept of savings suggests that material learned perfectly, but then forgotten, can be relearned more easily.

Miller (1956) The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information

George Miller's paper on
bit is the information needed to distinguish between choices. A doubling of choices adds one bit. Miller refers to Pollack's research on tone distinguishing which suggests that 2.5 bits is the channel capacity for this mental performance. "2.5 bits corresponds to about six equally likely alternatives. ... if we know that there were N alternative stimuli, then his judgment enables us to narrow down the particular stimulus to one out of N / 6." While Miller doesn't explore why experts may be able to distinguish more, I'd suggest it's either because their brains feature well-formed, refined, even economized network connections which are faster/easier to traverse (I have absolutely no basis for this except a novice's understanding of neuronal recycling, which suggests that we can "rewire" our brain functions based on repetitive usage), or because they employ some sort of chunking based on prior knowledge to transform large quantities of items into small quantities of groups of items. My former hypothesis may be supported by some of the data Miller cites which suggests that less critical (or less used) sensory pathways facilitate fewer bits: taste is 1.9 bits, but vision allows for 3.25 bits.

Anderson & Schooler (1991). Reflections of the Environment in Memory

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