Feedback on Feedback

A consistent refrain in creating practice opportunities and assessments is the idea of feedback. Learners should have specific information about how well they did with the practice opportunities provide to them. Otherwise, they will not know whether or not they have enough of a grasp of the material to successfully retrieve it and use it at a later time. We have just studied a chapter on providing practice opportunities in e-Learning situations and the authors suggested that the feedback needs to tell the learner not only whether or not the practice was completed successfully (whether the answer was right or wrong, if appropriate) and why.

I agree completely that feedback is extremely important in both practice and assessment situations. I'm a bit perplexed on how much feedback to provide in an assessment situation. At that point, do you tell the user whether the question was answered incorrectly -- and do you provide the correct answer? Or do you direct the learner back to the instruction to find the correct answer? I've heard arguments for both sides. I am guessing that it depends on the audience and the purpose for the assessment.

Redundancy vs. Learning Styles: Mutually Exclusive or Possibly Compatible?

This week, we discussed the importance of avoiding redundancy in providing material to learners. Specifically, we discussed how providing the same material through a visual format (graphics), audio narration, and printed text can overwhelm learners and detract from learning. Presenting printed text and explanatory graphics can overload the learner's limited visual processing channel. The Redundancy Principle suggests that in most cases, it's better to show and tell, not to show, show, and tell. On-screen text or explanatory graphics can be paired with audio narration to appeal to both the visual and auditory channels.

This contrasts with the learning styles approach, which recommends that e-Learning designers include seemingly redundant methods of presenting materials to appeal to different learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). I'm sure this has been a lively debate for many years, because it does seem true that we have different preferences for processing new information. My partner is like a human tape recorder; he can hear a conversation and repeat it almost verbatim later. He is a strong auditory learner. I have to use a combination of preferences. I do need to hear it, but I also need to process it visually and kinesthetically if possible. Most of us do use a combination of styles.

So, where do the approaches meet? I think they both have a place in e-Learning design and they are not mutually exclusive. Is this where truly blended learning plays more of a role? We can have audio and visual information, but perhaps we can provide a worksheet at the end for learners to download that sums up the main points of the lesson. Maybe the worksheet could contain a practice exercise or two. Yes, there would be some redundancy, but the learner would have the choice of whether or not to use the additional (possibly redundant) information.

Let's Get Conversational

This week's chapter and discussions focused around making online training more personal and less formal. In a word, more conversational. I think this is a great idea, but it's something I have found difficult to put into practice. I was an English major as an undergraduate student and I have a tendency to lapse into formal writing whenever I am doing any kind of professional writing. To me, formal writing is designed to impress others -- whether it's a supervisor or an instructor -- and I guess I like to show off as much as anyone else. But as far as e-Learning is concerned, formal writing does not always apply, and I will endeavor (no... I will try) to incorporate more of an informal style when it's appropriate.

Another aspect of this chapter that I found interesting was the virtues of virtual coaches. To me, a virtual coach can be effective if credibility is maintained. We don't want learners to say, "That's really dumb" or "How silly" when the virtual coach appears; otherwise, we have lost the learner. I discussed this with my supervisor and she agreed with me that there's a fine line to be walked when implementing virtual coaches so that there's enough of a positive return (in terms of learning and transfer) on the investment of creating the virtual coaches in the first place.