Emergence of Analogies in Collaboratively Conducted Computer Simulations

To learn by means of analogies, students have to see surface and deep structures in both source and target domains. Educators generally assume that students, presented with images, texts, video, or demonstrations, see what the curriculum designer intends them to see, that is, pick out and integrate information into their existing understanding. However, there is evidence that students do not see what they are supposed to see, which precisely inhibits them to learn what they are supposed to learn. In this extended case study, which exemplifies a successful multimedia application, 3 classroom episodes are used (a) to show how students in an advanced physics course do not see relevant information on the computer monitor; (b) to exemplify teaching strategies designed to allow relevant structures to become salient in students’ perception, allowing them to generate analogies and thereby learn; and (c) to exemplify how a teacher might assist students in bridging from the multimedia context to the real world.

How Literacy Emerges from Living Books in the Digital Era

Advanced digital storybooks offer, in addition to an oral rendition of text, the possibility of enhancing story content through the use of video. In three experiments, effects of added video with accompanying music and sound on language comprehension and language acquisition were tested in a group of second language learners from low educated families. Three questions were posed. Do video additions positively influence young children’s story understanding over and above still images when listening to a storybook? How does video add to language acquisition; through added information or through the appraisal of helpfulness of the added information? Do these extra information sources benefit all young children to the same extent or especially children with insufficient prior knowledge?

Fostering Transfer in Multimedia Instructional Environments

The role and promotion of transfer in multimedia instructional environments is an oft-neglected concept in instructional multimedia research. However, while most instructional multimedia research does not focus specifically on transfer, the majority of basic multimedia research conducted uses retention and transfer as dependent measures. The purposes of this chapter are to (a) provide a review of the current state of the transfer literature, (b) provide a synthesis of the existing literature on the evidence for transfer in multimedia instructional environments, and (c) provide a series of strategies for constructing and using multimedia for the purpose of fostering transfer. The significance of proactively creating multimedia instructional environments that fosters transfer lies in the benefits of creating knowledge that may be generalized and applied in the “real world.” Specifically, knowledge that may be generalized, applied, or transferred broadly facilitates the learner’s ability to solve problems of all types. In addition and unfortunately, even under the best of conditions, fostering transfer is challenging; thus, a proactive stance in fostering transfer is necessary to increase the likelihood of generating knowledge transfer.

Designing Multimedia to Trace Goal Setting in Studying

We suggest that multimedia environments can benefit from learning as well as offer significant capacity to serve as research purposes. Because motivational processes can support or inhibit complex learning, we first review current hypermedia learning models by specifically focusing on how they integrate motivational elements into their frameworks. Following our observation of a gap in the way motivational constructs (e.g., achievement goal orientation) are operationally defined, we suggest alternative methods, called traces, which make these latent constructs visible and measurable. The goal-tracing methodology we describe draws on achievement goal theory and extensive empirical studies in various settings. Using it, we treat learners’ use of cognitive tools as traces that express their goal orientations. By applying data mining techniques to these data, we show how it is possible to identify goal patterns together with study tactic patterns. We propose that future research can benefit substantially by merging trace methodologies with other methods for gathering data about motivation and learning.

The Cognitive Demands of Student-Centered, Web-Based Multimedia

This chapter examines the cognitive demands of student-centered learning from, and with, Web-based multimedia. In contrast to externally-structured directed learning, during the student-centered learning, the individual assumes responsibility for determining learning goals, monitoring progress toward meeting goals, adjusting or adapting approaches as warranted, and determining when individual goals have been adequately addressed. These tasks can be particularly challenging in learning from the World Wide Web, where billions of resources address a variety of needs. The individual, in effect, must identify which tools and resources are available and appropriate, how to assemble them, and how to manage the process to support unique learning goals. We briefly analyze the applicability of current cognitive principles to learning from Web-based multimedia, review and critically analyze research and practice specific to student-centered learning from Web-based multimedia, and describe implications for research.

What Factors Make a Multimedia Learning Environment Engaging

The purpose of this study is to investigate students’ engagement with a multimedia enhanced problem-based learning (PBL) environment, Alien Rescue, and to find out in what ways students consider Alien Rescue motivating. Alien Rescue is a PBL environment for students to learn science. Fifty-seven sixth-grade students were interviewed. Analysis of the interviews using the constant comparative method showed that students were intrinsically motivated and that there were 11 key elements of the PBL environment that helped evoke students’ motivation: authenticity, challenge, cognitive engagement, competence, choice, fantasy, identity, interactivity, novelty, sensory engagement, and social relations. These elements can be grouped into 5 perspectives of the sources of intrinsic motivation for students using Alien Rescue: problem solving, playing, socializing, information processing, and voluntary acting, with problem solving and playing contributing the highest level of intrinsic motivation. The findings are discussed with respect to designing multimedia learning environments.

Manipulating Multimedia Materials

This chapter discusses a theoretical framework for designing multimedia in which manipulation, rather than perception, of objects plays the predominant role. The framework is based on research by cognitive psychologists and on Engelkamp’s (1998) multimodal model of action-based learning. Although the assumptions of Engelkamp’s model should be helpful for instructional design, they are not complete enough to include the additional demands of multimedia learning. These additional demands can result in unintended actions, involve sequences of related actions, and require reflection about domain-specific knowledge. Actions can be performed on either physical or virtual manipulatives, but virtual manipulatives exist in idealized environments, support continuous transformations of objects, and allow for dynamic linking to other objects, symbols, and data displays. The use of manipulatives in the Building Blocks and Animation Tutor projects provide illustrations.

Using Narrative and Game-Schema Acquisition Techniques to Support Learning from Educational Games

The first part of this chapter explores how narrative can be used as a cognitive aid in educational video games. It discusses how narrative is currently used in games, and how that modality of presentation, when combined with instruction, is complimentary to the way we comprehend, store, and retrieve information. The second part of the chapter reviews the cognitive prerequisites needed in the minds of players to adequately attend to and leverage the instructional aspects of games. To this end, it offers suggestions for how to instill a functional game-schema in the minds of novice players so that they can be productive in the game environment. The focus on the interplay of narrative and game schema construction in this chapter is also meant to serve as a model for a holistic approach to games research in which a game’s cognitive prerequisites are explicitly studied alongside the more traditional pedagogical measures.

Supporting Discovery-Based Learning within Simulations

This chapter presents a review of research on the use and role of interactive simulations for learning. Contemporary theories of learning, instruction, and media, suggest that learning involves a complex relationship and dependency between a learner’s prior knowledge, a learner’s motivation, the context, the task, and the resources (e.g., simulations) provided to, and used by the learner to support or enable the task. Given this perspective, and data from an evolving research program, simulations are best used to help learners construct knowledge and make meaning by giving them control over phenomena modeled by the simulation. Several theoretical frameworks have guided this research program: dual coding theory, mental models, and constructivist learning theory. An overall result of this research is that learning should be based on experience, such as that derived from interacting with a simulation, and supported with explanations. This is counter to traditional educational wisdom where explanations rule instructional strategies.

Spatial and Nonspatial Integration in Learning and Training with Multimedia Systems

Multiformat and modality interfaces have become popular and effective tools for presenting information in training and instructional systems. Technological innovation, however, has far surpassed researchers’ understanding of how and under what circumstances these technologies are useful towards information gathering. Some recent research has begun to characterize the cognitive mechanisms that may be responsible for the comprehension and memory advantages typically seen with multimedia learning, as well as the role of individual differences in this process. Other work has defined effective pedagogical practices, such as instructional content and organization, for producing engaging and effective learning experiences. This chapter attempts to bridge these two research areas and provides concrete design recommendations for current instructional practice and directions for future research.