Book Chapter 5 Review Blog (Module 5)
Summary:
Chapter 5 of Clark and Mayer (2011) discusses the contiguity principle. This principle involves the concept of presenting information to the recipient in a way that allows for continuous absorption. It is easier to talk about what the contiguity principle is in terms of what it is not. The authors go through several examples of common mistakes that break the contiguity principle. For example, some online presentations or e-books displays a large amount of text as a description either before or after a figure. This forces the reader to scroll back and forth trying to read and interpret the figure in a very choppy manner. Problems can also arise when running text is displayed side by side with an animation. This splits the observer's attention and detracts from their learning experience. If one were to follow the contiguity principle, then presentations of text, figures, and animations should be closely integrated. A figure could include a text blurb within it or an animation could run with pauses where descriptive text could pop up.
Reflection:
The contiguity principle is something that I was already aware of from previous training on a faculty in-service day. I always try to be very mindful of how I create and present materials in my online math classes. My statistics course, for example, involves a lot of graphical interpretations of data. When I first started teaching online, I made the mistake of just showing a graph and then having a long text-based explanation in the paragraphs below. Now I edit my graphs to include small text boxes next to key elements. This helps my students to see exactly what each part of my text explanation is referencing. Psychologically, this means that my students will have both the graphic and text segments in their working memory at the same time. Clark and Mayer (2011) refer to this concept as constructive learning.
Reference:
Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for
consumers and designers of multimedia learning (3rded.). San Francisco, CA: Wiley & Sons.
Chapter 5 of Clark and Mayer (2011) discusses the contiguity principle. This principle involves the concept of presenting information to the recipient in a way that allows for continuous absorption. It is easier to talk about what the contiguity principle is in terms of what it is not. The authors go through several examples of common mistakes that break the contiguity principle. For example, some online presentations or e-books displays a large amount of text as a description either before or after a figure. This forces the reader to scroll back and forth trying to read and interpret the figure in a very choppy manner. Problems can also arise when running text is displayed side by side with an animation. This splits the observer's attention and detracts from their learning experience. If one were to follow the contiguity principle, then presentations of text, figures, and animations should be closely integrated. A figure could include a text blurb within it or an animation could run with pauses where descriptive text could pop up.
Reflection:
The contiguity principle is something that I was already aware of from previous training on a faculty in-service day. I always try to be very mindful of how I create and present materials in my online math classes. My statistics course, for example, involves a lot of graphical interpretations of data. When I first started teaching online, I made the mistake of just showing a graph and then having a long text-based explanation in the paragraphs below. Now I edit my graphs to include small text boxes next to key elements. This helps my students to see exactly what each part of my text explanation is referencing. Psychologically, this means that my students will have both the graphic and text segments in their working memory at the same time. Clark and Mayer (2011) refer to this concept as constructive learning.
Reference:
Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for
consumers and designers of multimedia learning (3rded.). San Francisco, CA: Wiley & Sons.
Hi Mr. Canepa. Thanks for the informative and well-written blog entry this week. I never really thought about contiguity as being something that needed separate attention, but what you (and the chapter) described makes perfect sense to me. I, for the most part, try to make things easy to understand for my learners (I'm sure they would disagree). My materials usually include graphic/text or animation/text combinations, but the principle would include any sort of materials where two different types of information are displayed. After reading this, I will be sure to look more closely when I put together curricula. I'm sure I'll find some areas to tone down the text! thanks for the insight this week!
ReplyDeleteTony
Mr. Canepa,
ReplyDeleteYou analysis of the text and graphic based working together instead of making one larger or putting an emphasis on one or the other makes sense. The balance is key when it comes to the end user for the intended purpose of making sure that they walk away showing how data from a graph is supported by the text but can be absorbed and move on to the next topic or subject matter. We are so inundated with text and graphics that we are all conditioned to absorb one way better than another, the design phase of this aspect should show us that we need to have their interests at heart and if less text does that, then we as the designers should incorporate that.
Great post.
Dave