Session 6: The Next Generation of Interactivity: Cognitive Interactivity

This session was given by a woman finishing her PhD in instructional design who also owns her own consulting practice, GOLearning.

Her talk is about how people think and learn with interactive elements in e-learning. She talked a lot about cognitive load theory which I actually researched quite a bit in my last job.

Basically, the theory says that you want to display information such that people can focus on relevant information and aren’t distracted by extraneous elements. For example is flashy blinky things that don’t teach anything (sounds like Las Vegas). Another example is presenting a really complicated diagram all at once, as apposed to gradually presenting different parts of the diagram and then putting it all together.

MY COMMENT: I think there’s a lot to cognitive load. I actually think that it’s a sensibility…. But, of course, there are principles that can guide it. If you’re interested, I can point you to a couple of articles I have on cognitive load in my files.

Some tips;

- Anything you put into your course, you should be able to describe why it’s there

MY COMMENT: I agree

- Create manageable chunks – lessons or modules to enable retrieval

- Include transitions, headings, sub-headings, summaries, topic introduction and learning objectives

MY COMMENT: This seems contradictory to Dr. Allen’s comments. He seems to think that it’s about the EXPERIENCE. You don’t need to put in all that introductory stuff.

- Time to reflect is important. Give learners the space to think and step back.

MY COMMENT: Reflection is an important part of any learning. But I think most people in e-learning don’t really want to do it. They just want to get through the training. I think our approach of involving managers using the job aids/reflection sheets can point to this. But I worry that it won’t really be used.

- Someone from the audience suggested opening e-learning with a relevant scenario or some reason why the learner cares

MY COMMENT: We’ve heard this before and buy in. I think it points to WeBFAM as a non-linear course. And BoBFAM w/ several mentor chatacters/stories. Have to bring out the “so what” in both of these courses. I think I said this already, but am not sure. I’d like to come back with what we want learners to do, think, feel after they took both of these courses.

- One technique that she uses is to make users construct their own job aid. It’s a drag and drop of features and benefits.

MY COMMENT: Cute idea. I have no clue how to develop it.

- Have learners make decisions within a virtual environment that presents the learning with challenges they might encounter outside the learning environment and allows them to apply rules or underlying concepts

MY COMMENT: I like this idea (it’s hard not to). I wonder if we can use the branched scenario capability from Captivate to do more scenario based training. It doesn’t really fit for WeBFAM or BoBFAM but it could certainly apply to the Learning Bursts.