Multimedia & Time On Task

I really enjoyed the Mayer article Multimedia learning: Are we asking the right questions? I've embedded the PowerPoint that I created on this reading which highlights some of the things I felt were most important. My absolute favorite quote was from Kozma: "it is time to shift the focus of our research from media as conveyors of methods to media and methods as facilitators of knowledge construction and meaning-making on the part of learners." (8) I also agree feel that Mayer was spot on when stating:  "it is not possible to determine whether media effects are attributable to differences between computer-based and bookbased delivery systems or to differences in the content and study conditions of the lessons." (7) This is great because it puts the focus back into the design and how we use multimedia as a tool rather than the tool itself.

Multimedia learning

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I found the follow-up to Mayer's first study validating of their previous assumptions.  I would like to read more about the dual-processing theory. I am interested to know if there have been any studies that address dual-processing between cognitive processes and motor skill processes.

Berliner (1990). What's All the Fuss About Instructional Time?

I found it useful the way that Berliner defined the different parts that make up instructional time. I would like to read more research on Perseverance and its effects on the educational process.

Berliner states, "Students can then be classified only as fast or slow – terms that describe an alterable variable, one that schools could accommodate to, if they wished. For a child and his or her parents, slowness can be overcome by perseverance, increased opportunities for learning, practice, and so forth. On the other hand, stupidness, dumbness, dullness, and the like appear to be forever!" (8). Is there research to back this up? This seems like it might be a little bit of an over generalization. Can anyone really learn anything if given enough time? If we were to have perfect physical bodies I think I would agree that anyone could learn anything but, considering our imperfections, this might be a little bit of a stretch.

I did like the author’s considerations of mastery learning. I wonder how effective learning would be in a school that did not have "grade levels" as we commonly think of them but instead had "mastery levels". If this were studied what we would find? How would an educational structure of this kind effect motivation?

Overall, in my mind, this article raised more questions than it answered them.