Blending Visuals and Text

1
Blending Visuals and Text

• Gary Brown, Director
• The Center for Teaching, Learning Technology

2
Cognitive Psychology

• Images influence our attention and subsequent
  learning
• Orienting Response
• Valence
• Arousal
• Dominance
• Pacing
• Congruence
• Our responses to images on these dimensions are
  universal.

3
The Research Question

• How do different media sources shape learning?
• Synthesis appears critical to successful
  learning.
• Better learners develop more elaborated
  discussion of an attribute by giving more
  detailed information about it.
• A picture is worth a thousand wordsConfucius

4
Two Modes
Two Messages
5
(No Transcript)
6
Multiple Choice Distribution
7
Multiple Choice Distribution
8
Media Mode Learning
9
What Students Said

• I remembered the video, but I didn't think it
  related.
• When I was drawing on my knowledge of the Chinese
  culture I forgot all about the computer knowledge
  I learned.
• I did not actually decide not to use the video
  material, it was just more convenient to recall
  what I had read 1/2 hour ago. This would be
  somewhat typical of my pattern "whatever comes
  first is what is used." I admittedly spent
  little time in recalling anything other than what
  was on my mind at the time.

10

• We all have had our sensibilities early
  deadened by an incessant barrage of visual
  entertainment as insubstantial as it is
  eye-catching."
  John Updike

11

• In the seventeenth century, the making of art
  was argued about intensely. Was painting. . . a
  straight forward report or a refined editorial?
  
• All the artist asks is that we look hard and
  think as we look
• Simon Schama

12
An acquaintance once asked Picasso why he didnt
paint realistically, adding, like this, as he
handed Picasso a photograph of his wife.
Picasso replied, My goodness your wife is small
and flat.
13
Brain Research

• Learning is an active process of making changes
  in the minds representations by reasoning about
  the worldnot just taking it as it comes.
  Learning means breaking, making, and remolding
  connections in our brains.
• The physical structure of the brain and the
  inferred representations of the mind depend not
  only on innate processes, but also on prior
  experience and knowledge.
• Everyone has a different brain configuration
  because everyone has a unique body of
  experience.
  Spence, Change, 2001

14
The Media Literacy Course
Look at the images compare the two photographs.

In this discussion, please respond to this
question what assumptions are these authors
making about how we "know"? The following
points may help you shape your response What do
you first notice about the photos? What cultural
assumptions do we have that these authors are
tapping into? What message does each photo
convey, and how do they differ? How would you
respond if those differences you see were
conveyed through another media, such as text, or
audio?
15
Towards Graphical Literacy

• Identify the relationships in the following
  graphs.
• What problem does the following represent?
• What implications can you derive?
• What other data would further inform your
  understanding of the issues depicted here?

16
Generative Learning

• Online Web Lab
• Student projects to make a persuasive web site
• You cant deconstruct unless you can construct.
• Those who cannot manipulate the language will be
  manipulated by it.

17
Survey Findings(Flashlight GAPS)

• 83 spent more time on task
• 90 shared ideas with online peers
• 75 appreciated the relevancy of their skills
• 83 reflected on the effectiveness of their
  thinking
• 75 developed new strategies for learning
• 75 reported learning in new ways that dont come
  easily
• 90 felt challenged to create their own
  understanding

18
Students Say

• The course achieved a lot in a very short time,
  and I worked harder in a new way than I ever have
  done before.
• The class has made me look at the visual media in
  a much different fashion. Often I find myself
  analyzing how a certain piece of media makes me
  develop an opinion and often makes realize my own
  biases.
• Overall, I am excited about the realm of
  possibilities that the comparatively low level of
  technical mastery I did achieve can open up for
  me.

19

• I do have to say that when I first saw the
  description of this class, I thought it somewhat
  odd to be a requirement for the business degree,
  but now see it as absolutely essential.

20
More Brain Research

• We all come to a learning opportunity of course,
  with different memories and experiences, and we
  will each use different combinations of
  hard-wired and labile pathways to burn in new
  circuitry.
• This fact provides a base-level model for the
  theory of multiple learning styles.
• But the same model suggests that everyones
  learning style is, in fact, unique there are as
  many learning styles as there are learners.
  
  Leamnson, Change, 2000.

21
The Controlled ExperimentIntroductory Statistics

• We examined 9 lab sections from a large
  statistics course offered in the fall 2000.
• Measures included
• Pre and post questionnaires assessing students
  quantitative, verbal, and academic confidence and
  experience as well as attitudes towards
  statistics.
• Learning preferences
• Two mid-semester exams
• A cumulative final exam
• Laboratory activities
• Homework
• Two class projects.
• Quantitative and verbal skills
• SAT verbal score, SAT math score, and SAT total
  score.

22
Findings

• Ease of use of the statistics packages examined
  in this study are inversely associated with
  improved learning.
• Factor analysis surfaced a potent association
  between attitude, persistence, and confidence in
  ability to learncommitment to learning.
• Students who report learning strengths in
  restricted venues also reported and demonstrated
  a lower commitment to learning.
• Commitment to learning offsets the influence of
  self-concept and preferred learning modes.

23

• COLLEGE STUDENTS who procrastinate in their
  academic work are also likely to have unhealthy
  sleep, diet, and exercise patterns.
• Data presented at the annual meeting of the
  American Psychological Association in Chicago

24
More Cognitive Psychology

• People generally hold one of two fairly firm
  beliefs about their intelligence they consider
  it either a fixed trait or something that is
  malleable and can be developed over time.
• People who believe their intelligence is a fixed
  trait will avoid challenge.
• Students who hold a fixed view of their
  intelligence care so much about looking smart
  that they act dumb.
• Dweck writes, For what could be dumber than
  giving up a chance to learn something that is
  essential for your own success?

25
Emerging Understanding?