One of the primary considerations when constructing educational materials, including video, is cognitive load.
Definition: Signaling, also known as cueing, is the use of on-screen text or symbols to highlight important information. Signaling helps the student by drawing attention to information of particular importance in the narrative.
Examples:
Why it works: "By highlighting the key information, signaling helps direct learner attention, thus targeting particular elements of the video for processing in the working memory."
Implications for learning: Compared with more advanced learners, novice
learners value increased signaling from the instructor. They possess far less ability
at this stage to discriminate between essential and less-essential lecture content,
so strong and clear signaling is especially helpful to them.
Effective signaling serves to increase germane load by emphasizing the organization
of (and connections within) the information presented. At the same time, it reduces
extraneous load by eliminating the ongoing inner dialog of, "How important
is this relative to everything else?" The author notes that researchers have shown
that signaling also improves retention and knowledge transfer.
Definition: Segmenting is simply the chunking of information in a video
lesson. Rather than present a large amount of information in a single video, the
content is segmented into a series of shorter videos.
How to do it:
Why it works: Segmenting allows learners to engage with smaller, more manageable pieces of new information, and gives them control over the flow of new information.
Implications for learning: Helps students cope with intrinsic load and can also increase germane load by emphasizing the structure of the information.
Definition: Weeding is the elimination of interesting but extraneous information
that does not contribute to the learning goal. Unnecessary information serves
to overload working memory, increase extraneous load, and hinder learning.
Examples:
Implications for learning design: Although weeding is beneficial to
every learner, it should be performed carefully, informed by the student level of
expertise (truly novice learners in a subject domain versus more advanced students).
"Importantly, information that increases extraneous load changes as the learner
moves from novice toward expert status. That is, information that may be extraneous
for a novice learner may actually be helpful for a more expert-like learner, while
information that is essential for a novice may serve as an already known distraction
for an expert."
The goal is to include information necessary for cognitive processing, while eliminating
information not needed to reach the learning goal. The author notes that researchers
have shown that weeding also improves retention and knowledge transfer.
Definition: Matching modality (see Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning) refers
to a strategy for optimizing the function of working memory to increase learning. Matching
modality means that we fit the type of information best suited to the most appropriate
channel, narrative information supplied via the audio/verbal channel, and visual
information supplied via the visual/pictorial channel.
Example: Teaching a process by showing an animation while simultaneously narrating
your commentary. This approach uses both channels to explain the process,
with the learner receiving complementary streams of information, neither of
which overloads the limits of working memory.
Non-example: Showing the same animation while simultaneously displaying textual
commentary on screen. This approach neglects the audio/verbal channel entirely while
overloading the visual/pictorial channel; this overtaxes working memory and impairs
learning.
Implications for learning: Matching modality properly allows instructors
to enhance the germane load of a learning experience. This serves to increase a student's
lecture engagement, information retention, and ability to transfer information.