Name It to Tame It

If a language provides a label for a complex concept, that could make it easier to think about the concept, because the mind can handle it as a single package when juggling a set of ideas, rather than having to keep each of its components in the air separately. It can also give a concept an additional label in long-term memory, making it more easily retrivable than ineffable concepts or those with more roundabout verbal descriptions.

- Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought

Excellently put by the author what I have always believed.

Also, this underlines the advantage of academic training which provides you with so many terms/concepts that are useful for understanding, remembering and analyzing ideas.

Instructional Design is about Adapting Instruction to Brain’s Ways

The Learning Circuits Blog from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) asks “The Big Question” on a topic related to eLearning each month and invites replies from learning professionals.

The Big Question for July is:

Does the discussion of "how the brain learns" impact your elearning design?

My answer to that is an unequivocal yes. The eLearning design choices I make are definitely informed by my knowledge and experience of how the human brain learns. And I am sure this holds true for every eLearning designer.

Take the example of multimedia. eLearning is almost always designed with multimedia. This is obviously not done just for aesthetic or recreative reasons, but to support and improve learning. Research has shown that people learn better from words and pictures together than from either words or pictures alone. Multimedia enhances learning by stimulating multiple senses simultaneously. The Cue Summation Theory also states that learning increases as the number and types of cues increase.

Further, learning is enhanced when the instructional material provides or simulates real-life experience. This also is realized by making use of multimedia. Multimedia (such as 3D animations, video, graphics, etc.) removes the layers of abstraction and brings the instructional material closer to reality, thereby aiding the learning process.

Another learning theory that is relevant for eLearning design is the Cognitive Load Theory (John Sweller). The theory states that the capacity of our working memory to process information is limited. According to George Miller the working memory can hold only “seven plus or minus two chunks” of information. If the learner's working memory is bombarded with too much information, cognitive overload occurs, which hampers encoding of information and learning.

Once the learner is overloaded, frustration and demoralization inevitably set in. And people can’t learn when they’re frustrated and demoralized. One key to teaching, then, is to avoid overloading the learner’s working memory.

- Ruth C Clark and D. Taylor, The causes and cures of learner overload, Training, 1994

What implication does the Cognitive Load Theory have for eLearning design? We always design eLearning objects with small chunks of content in order to prevent cognitive overload. We also often use the “progressive disclosure” or “layered” design technique to present the content, so that the learner does not have to process a lot of information at a time.

Further, we know from experience that it is difficult to learn if one has to read text and listen to audio at the same time, as it causes cognitive overload. Therefore we design eLearning instruction keeping in mind such propensities of the human brain.

I can provide more examples, but I think the point is made. That instructional design is about adapting the instruction to brain’s ways. Ruth Clark is spot on in suggesting that Instructional Technology practitioners must incorporate an understanding of how cognitive and memory systems work during the learning process.

Technology is Game Changer

I have always considered technology to be the most potent agent of change in various fields of human affairs - administration, communication, entertainment, learning, etc.

Answering a question about the impact of technology on learning at Linkedin, I wrote:

I disagree with the suggestions that technology is just a tool that aids learning, and that learning would always primarily consist in teacher-student interaction in classrooms.

That is of course true for children’s education, but, hey, children’s education is not just about learning; that is about the broader process of socialization.

I am a big believer in the impact of technology on learning or, for that matter, on most arenas of human affairs. When the technology of 'writing’ was developed in the remote past, it revolutionized not only learning but the whole human civilization. The arrival of calculators rendered rote learning of number tables unnecessary and anachronistic. I have no doubt that computer and web 2.0 technologies are going to completely transform learning, especially adult learning.

As I was reading George Siemens’ article on Connectivism, I realized that many of the processes previously handled by our brain (such as memorizing, number crunching, data analysis) can now be outsourced to, or supported by, technology. Thus, in George Siemens' words, “Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains.”

Isn’t it revolutionary?