COGNITIVISM AND CONNECTIVISM

Some principles of cognitive theory (Guyan, 2013; Pappas, 2016) are below.

• Present some information via the visual channel and some via the verbal channel
• Break content into smaller segments and allow the learner to control the pace
• Remove non-essential content
• Words should be placed close as possible to the corresponding graphics
• Don’t narrate on-screen text word-for-word
• Include the necessary resources.
• Get rid of the unnecessary online activities.

Learning Scenario based on Cognitivism (Social Cognitivism)

Participants join in the same learning activity “How to solve poverty in Town A”. In the class, teachers give basic knowledge about poverty and the situation of Town A. Participants are divided into small groups for investigation and teaching assistants help their investigation. At the beginning of the class, participants do not have any knowledge and skills for investigation. So, teaching assistants demonstrate the investigation and explain important points such as resources and method for investigation. Students observe their teaching assistants and imitate from the next week.

"Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing. According to their principle of connectivism, learning is a process of connecting nodes or information resources. And maintaining and nurturing connections is needed to facilitate continual learning. "

Learning Scenario based on Connectivism

Participants join in the same learning activity “How to solve poverty in Town A”. In the class, teachers give basic knowledge about poverty and the situation of Town A. Beside the class, participants share their blogs about this theme from various aspects and can share with the other participants. One participant made a blog article regarding “The relation between poverty and unemployment rate in the town A” and the other participant made a blog article regarding “The effect of inadequate social welfare to the poverty in town A”. Their blogs have discussion board and participants can discuss on the blog. By reading the other participant’s blogs and discuss to understand topic deeply, participants can nurture connections of each knowledge and information.

Google Digital Workshop

https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/topic-library

This is the online course to learn digital marketing such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social media use, and analyzing access. The course is designed and supported by Google and learners can acquire digital certificate, issued by Google, after they finished learning 23 topics. I joined this program and acquired the certificate. Most contents address cognitive load and I felt less stress in the course. Below are good points and bad points of the course.

Does address cognitive load

• Break content into smaller segments

Contents of this course are segmented into smaller contents. For example, 1 topic is divided into 6 small topics and learners can finish learning 1 small topic within 10 minutes.

• Present some information via the visual channel and some via the verbal channel

Some contents are delivered on text while some contents are delivered on movie. If learners have to read all contents on text, it must be overwhelming.

Does not address cognitive load

• Include the necessary resources.

The course does not provide the navigation to the additional necessary resources. Sometimes, it explains new words and related topics, but they do not supply URI to the resources. Learners need to search and check by themselves.Therefore, one approach to improve instructional materials on this course is to add the necessary resources to enable learners to access resources easily.