The purpose of most long-term learning experiences is to move an individual from a state of little proficiency in a skill to one of competence or even expertise. But what makes someone an expert? … [Read more...]
How To Be Effective At Persuasion For Learning
Do you ever use persuasion in learning experiences? Although the persuasion may be subtle, I'm guessing the answer is yes. Whether implicit or explicit, we often attempt to influence the attitudes and … [Read more...]
Novice Versus Expert Design Strategies
The Expertise Reversal Effect
Common sense tells us that we should design differently for novices than for experts. Wouldn't you expect a novice swimmer to learn new strokes differently than an advanced swimmer? What might not be … [Read more...]
Elaboration Strategies That Benefit Learning
Making Connections to Prior Knowledge
Although retrieval practice and spaced learning may be more well-known, elaboration is an instructional strategy worth our attention. Elaboration strategies refer to the many ways of connecting prior … [Read more...]
How Visual Clarity Affects Learning
Research on Processing Fluency
How do you react when you see a very complex diagram or a screen of dense text? Are you motivated to work through it? Or do you groan and turn away if it becomes too difficult? Complex or dense … [Read more...]
Long-Term Memory: A User’s Guide
When you're designing learning experiences, long-term memory is the ultimate destination. It's the promised land—where you want newly learned skills and information to integrate with a person's … [Read more...]
Designing Learning for Mental Models
Did you have trouble the first time you tried to start a keyless car? Or perhaps the first time you took a panoramic picture? According to a well-known theory, these tasks were difficult because you … [Read more...]
Emotions and Learning Part III
10 Ways To Design For Emotions
. It's quite clear from research on emotional design for learning, that we can generate connections using the right instructional strategies and creative treatments. These have the potential to … [Read more...]
Emotions and Learning: Part II
How Emotions Affect Learning
According to research studies, emotions have an effect on many of the processes of learning. Emotions are an influence on perception, attention, motivation, and the encoding and … [Read more...]
Emotions And Learning: Part I
Emotion and Cognition
I've never done a formal survey, but I'm going to guess that the majority of our online courses don't have a strong emotional impact on the audience. This is true even though it's been known for some … [Read more...]
20 Things To Remember About Forgetting
What Causes Us To Forget
Even though it's used all day and night, we are usually not aware of our memory's processes until they fail. Yet remembering and forgetting are crucial aspects of learning. In learning design, it's … [Read more...]
How To Write Analogies To Enhance Learning
Analogies are a key component of human thinking and understanding. They've stimulated great feats of problem-solving and discovery. They are also a classic way to foster learning by applying prior … [Read more...]