Efficiency-Learning-Evidence-Based-Guidelines-Cognitive Load
24 of 24 people found
the following review helpful
5.0
out of 5 stars The
future of education and communication, March 20, 2007
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
This book shows you
how to make complex things easy to understand, and it is based on solid
research. If you are involved in communicating or teaching anything that is
complex (to the audience), you need this book. The authors practice what they
teach; a fairly complex set of well-researched recommendations is presented in
a clear and easily digestible format. Nothing is "dumbed down," just
presented clearly.
I have been following the research into "cognitive load" (difficulty in learning)
on the Internet for some years now, but I yearned for single, coherent book to
tie it all together. One day I typed that phrase into the search box on Amazon,
and up came this book. It has more than met my expectations.
The book supplies research to support its assertions, but focuses on concrete
recommendations that any teacher or communicator can apply right away.
It should be placed in the hands of anybody teaching a complex topic at any
grade level, such as
-mathematics
-statistics
-economics
-engineering
-physics
-chemistry
-etc.
I initially ordered this book on interlibrary loan. Although I could easily
read it in the three week loan period, I decided to buy it within a few days.
Efficiency in Learning
teaching for the 21st century. The sooner the world catches on to this, the
better.
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15 of 15 people found
the following review helpful
5.0
out of 5 stars Efficiency
in Learning: Efficiency in Design, March 19, 2008
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
I've been a big fan of
Ruth Clark since I attended one of her workshops in 2002, and especially since
buying her book, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction, in 2004. There are
at least a few reasons. One, Ruth's guidance for instructional designers is based in research - not
fad and not personal belief. Two, she bridges the gap between educational research and training for
adults. Three, she always makes sure to build specific, useful
guidelines from the research and theory she cites.
This time out, Ruth, along with Frank Nguyen of Intel and John Sweller of the
University of New South Wales, lay down a host of design recommendations based
on cognitive load theory.
The theory centers around the reality of working memory - the in-the-now
processing capacity of the brain, limited to 7 bits, plus or minus two.
Learning is limited by the capacity of working memory, and there are a number
of strategies instructional designers can use to manage the cognitive load
placed on it so that learning is made more effective, more efficient or both.
I'll point out just two important ideas from the book and trust that you will
be sufficiently tempted to take possession of this important book.
The theory has evolved three types of cognitive load: intrinsic, extrinsic and
germane. Intrinsic load is the demand placed on working memory by the nature of
the task, more specifically the interactivity between content elements that
must be learned. The amount of intrinsic load can be seen in the difference
between learning the alphabet and learning to read. Reading involves
understanding grouped letters as words, attaching meaning to them and
understanding them when placed with other words that create complete thoughts.
Extraneous load is that imposed on working memory that does not add to
learning. Poor writing increases extraneous load, the kind that needs to be
minimized or eliminated. Germane load places demand on working memory that
contributes to learning - practice exercises, varied examples and the like.
Ruth and friends cite plenty of research to support the theory and then provide
many practical guidelines flowing from it.
The other big idea, at least for me, is the realization that managing cognitive
load for experts is very different than for novices. Most of the guidelines
used for designing instruction for novices must be faded and eventually eliminated
as learners gain expertise. Again, research and practical guidelines follow
from this insight.
My single - and small - criticism for Ruth Clark is the continued inclusion of
material from her previous works. For example, I keep seeing the same little
guy and his memory looking at the computer screen and listening to his computer
speakers in every one of her books. She also continues to treat the reader as a
novice, supplying all those supports for novices that frustrate me a little.
The obvious answer is to ignore those supports and move on the the more meaty
content. Problem is, from a value perspective, I'd be skipping over about a
third of the book!
In sum, I find this book to be essential for instructional designers and those
who manage or purchase learning programs. Just as the practice of medicine is
improved by evidence-based procedures and guidelines, so too is instructional
design.
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5 of 5 people found
the following review helpful
5.0
out of 5 stars Excellent
Resource, January 11, 2009
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
A very useful
reference/resource for understanding the effects of cognitive load on learning,
that includes descriptions of instructional strategies to address these
effects. I found the text to be well organized and thorough. I particularly
liked the explanation of effect size on statistical analysis of the effects of
cognitive load. I'd recommend this text to those developing instructional
materials,a s it provides soem excellent guidelines for improving learning
effectiveness.
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2 of 2 people found
the following review helpful
5.0
out of 5 stars Pleasantly
Surprised, March 18, 2010
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
I recently read this
book for work, because Ruth Clark is going to speak there soon. I was
pleasantly surprised by the applicability of the information contained in this
book to me, a mere graduate student. Even though I already have plenty of
reading to do for class, I sat down with this book and finished it in a week.
While normally I would not seek to read a book of this nature quite so quickly,
I was impressed with the readability and the relevancy of the examples. I am
going to start applying these principles to a series of captivate tutorials I
am creating regarding the usage of WordPress as a content management system. Of
course I will also have plenty of great tips for my presentation at work as
well, since we deal in online learning and always want to get the most bang
(learning) for the client's buck. It's refreshing to remember that the
efficiency of learning is not based solely on the technology used, but rather
in the presentation of the material. Thanks again Ruth Clark for another
well-written book. Yes she may simplify the material to the novice level, but
sometimes that is enough. I did not need to read every example in the book, but
was grateful for those examples to help clarify some of the concepts presented.
Expert Instructional Designers, yes you may skip over a third of the book, but
if you ever have to defend yourself or your methods to your clients, you will
be grateful for these go to examples that even the most-novice can understand.
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2 of 2 people found
the following review helpful
5.0
out of 5 stars A
fantastic book about cognitive load theory and how to apply it, March 8,
2009
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
I was looking for a book
that explained cognitive load theory, identified the research that supported
it, and provided clear guidelines for implementing it in instructional design.
This is exactly the book I needed! There is also a CD with a wonderful extended
interview with Dr. John Sweller, the originator of cognitive load theory, that
brings the entire theory to life.
The book was written with instructional designers in mind and the expectation
that it might be used as a text book. They provide examples of research-based
evidence to support every guideline. This is an excellent book and I strongly
recommend it to anyone interested in learning about and applying cognitive load
theory to their instructional design to increase the likelihood of learning and
retention.
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1 of 1 people found the
following review helpful
5.0
out of 5 stars Efficiency
in Learning, May 29, 2008
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
The information in
this book is concise, clearly stated, and applicable to anyone teaching,
although meant for those teaching adults. It supports the basic principles of
cognitive load with research, presented in a way that is easily understandable.
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3 of 4 people found
the following review helpful
5.0
out of 5 stars Excellent,
January 28, 2008
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
This is a great
step-by-step overview of how to increase the efficiency of learning materials
through research-based design practices. It's rare that I find a book on
instructional design practices that is so complete in terms of citing research
and data.
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5.0
out of 5 stars Excellent,
July 14, 2012
By
I use Adobe Captivate
to teach a high school science class. This book allows me to go through my
lessons and polish them in a way that will help students understand, learn and
retain the material more efficiently. This is exactly the research I was
looking for. It is very practical. She shows the research, the results and then
how to apply these results to designing effective lessons. Thankyou.
That said, the book continuously refers to a CD which apparently the kindle
version doesn't have. So there is a significant difference between the Kindle
version and the book. This is a book about Elearning and using multimedia, you
would think they would have been able to include anything on the CD with the
book in the Kindle edition.
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5.0
out of 5 stars Comprehensive
findings from evidence-based education research, March 16, 2012
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
While researching how
to implement a blended learning model in my introductory statistics course for
geographers, I heard about and subsequently purchased this book. It is one of
the most useful books on instructional design I've ever read (out of perhaps 25
or so books). At its core, it relies on evidence-based research to make its
claims, while also implementing the recommendations in the text itself. Its
discussion of cognitive load is also made very clearly. The central premise of
cognitive load theory is that the average person can hold seven chunks of
information (thought the range for the population is five to nine such chunks
with --- apparently --- a Normal distribution). When a topic is new, those
chunks will tend to be very small quantities of information. Good instructional
design anticipates cognitive load.
What is chunking? For instance, when we first learned our ABCs, each letter
would have been a chunk, as would the corresponding sound. However, as we
become more familiar with a topic, the amount of information in a chunk
increases. For most of you, "ABCs" is a single chunk that encompasses
the whole of the alphabet and its common typewritten and handwritten
orthography as well as sounds. This is a simple way to separate out the
differences between novices and experts. I now think of my courses in terms of
the chunks for each lab and for each lecture.
While many of the findings / recommendations are of the less-is-more variety,
they are always presented in terms of the learning effects for novice,
intermediate and expert learners (and by this, I mean familiarity with the
topic, not that the learners are sorted by their meta-cognitive repertoires).
If you are interested in improving your courses, this book will help. While I
bought it based on some other recommendations I'd gotten in some instructional
design groups, you might consider checking it out from your library first. It
is geared toward a university-instructor audience, especially those in science,
technology, engineering and math, but I suspect its findings are useful in
other disciplines as well. While it won't teach you to be a dynamic instructor,
it will teach you to be a clear instructor that increases students' learning
efficiency (i.e., reduce the time it takes students to learn a chunk of
information) and possibly their learning outcomes (i.e., demonstrating they
understand a chunk of information).
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5.0
out of 5 stars Great
book, February 20, 2011
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
I am slowly making my way
through this book. I've read the first 9 chapters and am really enjoying it. I
like how key studies are summarized and their results are displayed. This gives
me a good sense of what the data actually are. The advice from the authors is
summed up in simple guidelines that guide you through the key points the book
is making. I think the book is easy to read and points out a lot of interesting
studies and how their conclusions apply to instructional design.
5.0
out of 5 stars Well
presented, and well enough supported, February 3, 2011
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
This is the second
Ruth Clark book on instruction and learning that I've read. I believe her work
is amongst the most accessible and relevant in instruction & presentation,
from both an academic and practical standpoint. Here she ties practical,
logical approaches and solutions to managing cognitive load in various learning
environments, and supports those solutions with simple documentation of viable
research. As with her book, 'Developing Technical Training,' her style in
'Efficiency in Learning...' is uncluttered and really delivers valuable
insight. It's one of those book you come away from feeling you've really
learned something relevant, and reference back to again and again.
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5.0
out of 5 stars Important
for Everyone Who Creates Training Materials, June 17, 2010
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
There are several
other reviews discussing the details of why this book is useful and important,
so I will be brief. This is a great introduction to cognitive load and how to
manage it in the face of the firehose of information facing us. Clark et al are
a bit repetitive at times (the book has the feel of being inflated a bit), but
overall the message is very valuable. Instructional designers should have this
essential book--and read it carefully.
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5.0
out of 5 stars instructional
designers take note, May 17, 2010
By
This
review is from: Efficiency
in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (Hardcover)
This book is great! I work with instructors to
create (sometimes complex) multimedia materials. When I get stuck on how to
convey something to a given audience, I refer to this book for ideas. It is
also helpful in that it backs me up when I try to explain to a particular
instructor why I do not want to create the materials "their way". A must have book in my opinion.
