We’ve completed the first full week of IPT 511 where we primarily focused on the first two chapters of our text, The New Virtual Classroom, in our class discussion forum. According to the authors Clark and Kwinn, results from media comparison research are rather consistent and the potential for someone to learn is more or less equivalent regardless of which form of media is chosen for instruction.
What does that mean?
The common myth is that something more visual, like a video, is better than text or spoken word for example. The truth is, it is not the delivery mechanism or media that is chosen for instruction that facilitates learning, it is the components that make up the instruction that enables the learner to gain new knowledge or change their behavior (whichever the primary performance objective is).
Those “components” and their examples are:
- Communication mode – text, audio, graphics
- Instructional methods – definitions, examples, demos, practice
- Instructional architecture – receptive, directive, guided discovery, exploratory
Out of these components, I wonder how a learner’s learning style comes into play? According to the authors, the media doesn’t matter. It’s the components employed that are important as to whether or not the learner gains new knowledge or changes their behavior. Certainly, some media is going to work better than others at delivering a message based on learning style.
Perhaps I’m falling into the very myth I’m trying to debunk here. One thing I didn’t notice in the text was discussion of some upfront audience analysis that should be done before pulling instructional components together to create synchronous e-learning. It wasn’t covered in the first two chapters of the text. Maybe it was only assumed this would be done before any instructional components were pulled together.
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