Christmas WS's!
According to educational psychologist Richard Mayer, “people learn better from words and pictures than words alone.” (Mayer, 2005) Through the use of pictures, words and sounds multimedia learning is proving itself as a successful method for teaching younger kids.
Multimedia learning does come with a cautionary tale, though – “the use of multimedia instruction can significantly enhance student learning if properly designed and implemented” (SEG Research, Sep 2008) – so if you are interested in exploring and evaluating multimedia learning programs for your child, such as K5 Learning, keep the following expert pointers in mind:
- “Effective multimedia recognizes that working memory has limited capacity to process information” (SEG Research, 2008) – meaning delivering new concepts in bite-size chunks is the right approach – little and often helps children commit learning to long-term memory.
- “Multimedia learning is more effective when learner attention is focused, not split” (SEG Research) – speaking for linear learning.
- “When giving a multimedia explanation, use few rather than many extraneous words and picture” (Harp and Mayer, 1997) – simple animations and easy to use interfaces is the right approach.
- “Multimedia learning is more effective when it is interactive and under the control of the learner” (SEG Research). Look for multimedia programs that allow your child to interact with the content even at the tutorial stage.
- “Multimedia learning is most effective when the learner can apply their newly acquired knowledge and receive feedback” (SEG Research) – programs that reinforce correct answers and quickly correct wrong answers with encouragements to try again help to keep the child motivated.
- Multimedia instructions that include animation can improve learning (SEG Research).
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