Student-Centered Design

When I read Norman’s “Design of Everyday Things,” I reflected his ideas into educational setting, especially instructional design area. In the part, “Three conceptual models,” he said “design model,” “user’s model,” and “system image” as mental models. Unfortunately, many instructional designers often make mistakes of creating learning modules without thoroughly analyzing students’ needs, prior knowledge and environment. In this case, instructional designers just satisfy with making learning modules no matter what students learn. In addition, instructional designers often do not consider learning system where learning happens. That is, an instructional designer’s model should be a learner’s model through learning system because an instructional designer and a student can communicate only through learning system itself. All three models are important.
As Norman mentioned in seven principles that both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head should be used to transform difficult tasks into simple one, an instructional designer should consider situated learning environment and learner’s prior knowledge. In addition, assuming that a learner has limited capacity in STM (Short Term Memory), an instructional designer should try to reduce a learner’s cognitive load by providing mental aids such as worked example, dual coding (visual and verbal), and non-redundant information as Mayer recommended (2003).

Homework_Three pages with CSS

These are simple pages with external CSS.
http://home.nyu.edu/~hss258

Thank you!!

Constructivism and Technology

While I read Mayer’s article, I recognized that I was still in the stage of knowledge acquisition in terms of learning even though I have studied “constructivism” and believed the constructivism as the alternative framework of education. For instance, when I read articles or books, I tend to focus on understanding the presented information, instead of thinking creatively with the information because English is my second language. In addition, when I taught algebra to junior high or high school students as a tutor, I often have experienced that I just memorized formulas without understanding the principle of formula during my school years. However, because the curriculum in my generation was suitable for that kind of learning (rote learning or skills learning) I seldom failed in an algebra class. Was I lucky or unlucky?
Advances in technology made people in education area (administrative officers, teachers, or parents) too excited. People often think that it is possible to educate students by just providing up-to-date technology. However, according to Mayer (2003), the role of technology in education should prompt “human cognition through the aid of technology” rather than give “people access to the latest technology.” To make good use of advances in technology in educational setting, an instructional designer should consider systemical analysis of learner, learning task and learning environment.

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