Nsiah, G.F.B. (2013). Best Practices in Distance Education: A Review. Retrieved

            from http://file.scirp.org/pdf/CE_2013122417082784.pdf

Rice, K. (2009). Priorities in K-12 distance education: A delphi study examining

            multiple perspectives on policy, practice, and research. Journal of

            Educational Technology & Society, 12(3), 163-n/a. Retrieved from 

            http://ezprozy.liberty.edu:2048/login?url=http://  

            search.proquest.com/docview/1287037247?accountid=12085

Rice, K. L. (2006). A Comprehensive Look at Distance Education in the K–12 Context.


               Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(4), 425-448.


               doi:10.1080/15391523.2006.10782468

The focus of chapter 6 is the modality principle. This principle has a great deal of research support and explains how the use of audio is crucial (Clark & Mayer 2011). The principle stresses that when students should be given auditory lessons, not just be required to read the text from a screen. As teachers, we should work to keep the audio narrations short and to the point.

The chapter goes on to explain that in an E-learning environment, we need to be aware of providing a visual overload. Planning for students need to have a combination of activities, and not solely depend on the visual information. We should always plan to meet the needs of various types of learners, and audio narrations can help with the learning process.

People have “separate information processing channels for visual/pictorial processing and for auditory/verbal processing” (Clark & Mayer 2011). With that being said E-learning only enhances the importance of audio. Students have limited interaction with their teachers compared to a traditional classroom, so incorporating audio is essential.

It is important to find a balance of text, pictures and audio lessons. As educators, we must be aware of the cognitive load that our students’ experience and ensure we are setting them up for success (Clark & Mayer 2011).  

I found this chapter to be important because it reminds us to consider that our students can only take in so much information. Simply presenting pictures and words can only go so far. If we use audio, we can use two separate cognitive channels, thus allowing for more learning (Clark & Mayer 2011).

This relates to our ISD project because we are teaching teachers how to use digital games in their classroom. Just as our young students have limited cognitive loads, so do adults. When we prepare our lessons for the teachers, incorporating audio will be a beneficial tool to help everyone succeed. This chapter did change my idea for our ISD project, since I had not originally planned on using audio in my section of the “professional development”. I will now be rethinking my plan to ensure that I incorporate audio.

This chapter made me reconsider my plan, and although it is a small change, it could have a huge impact on the success of the presentation. As teachers, we are always looking for ways to improve our classroom. Finding ways to improve lessons, makes things better for our students, and that should always be our goal.

Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven
            guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (3^rded.). San
            Francisco, CA: Wiley & Sons.  ISBN: 9780470874301.

Assessment Video

Clicking on a new chapter: the e-textbook is only one part of a bigger revolution in
           
            online learning. (2009). Nature, 458(7238), 549+. Retrieved from

http://ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.

            ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA197929084&sid=summon

           &v=2.1&u=vic_liberty&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=5feacdffd8eb873778de

47325a583f38

Parker, K., Lenhart, A., & Moore, K. (2011). THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AND

            HIGHER EDUCATION COLLEGE PRESIDENTS, PUBLIC DIFFER ON

            VALUE OF ONLINE LEARNING. The Catalyst, 40(3), 18- 24. Retrieved from

http://ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1017
892674?accountid=12085                                                                   

Spivey, M.F., & McMillan, J.J. (2014). Classroom Versus Online Assessment. Journal
             of  Education for Business, 89(8), 450-456. doi:10.1080/08832323.2014.937676

Theory - Gagne's Nine Events of Education

I chose Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction. These nine events serve as a framework for designing lessons. Step 1 is about gaining the attention of our students, which makes complete sense to me. Step 2 refers to ensuring students know what will be expected and what the learning goals are for the lesson. Step 3 wants students to make connections to prior knowledge or to apply to a situation they have already been through. Step 4 is where the content is presented to the students, and this can be done in a variety of ways. Step 4 leads into step 5 since this is the event where teachers are providing guidance, and giving additional information to help their students in the learning process. As students move to step 6, they are in the active learning stage, they are deepening their level of understanding. Step 7 is providing feedback which is followed by assessing student performance in Step 8. The last step is enhancing retention, and being able to understand the material enough to be able to paraphrase what they have learned (Kelly n.d.)

When considering young elementary students, I like the idea that “Gagne skills are to learned at the lowest level and mastered before proceeding” (Al-Shalabi, Andrews, Alrabea & Kumar 2012). The idea that students can become proficient before being asked to learn more is a positive, when considering young elementary students. I like that the steps are well thought out, and there is a clear path for the teacher and students.

The downside to Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction are that I don’t see a way to deviate from the nine events, yet still be effective. Not all students learn the same way, and some students may never reach the full depth of understanding referred to in the events of instruction. This would be a concern, yet may still be a possible framework if adjustments could be made.  

As far as applying this theory to my own teaching, I think we are doing many of these steps even in elementary school already. This was the first year we taught a common core type math to our students. We spent much more time explaining what our goals were, how we would reach them, allowing students to practice each skill and really worked on the students gaining a deeper level of understanding before we moved to more topics.

If we were to create online practice for young students, the nine events of learning would help teachers stay focused on the goals and help to ensure our students were continually growing and learning. The nine events are a nice map to help get our students through concepts and lessons.

Al-Shalabi, H., Andraws, S., Alrabea, A. I., & Kumar, A. V. S. (2012). V model of

            E-learning using gagne nine steps of education. Journal of Software Engineering

            and  Applications, 5 (11), 850-854. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login?

url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1281851414?accountid=12085

Kelly, M. (n.d.). Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from

            http://712educators.about.com/od/learningtheories/tp/Gagnes-Nine-Events-Of-Instruction.htm

Hey Everyone,
Welcome to my first blog. This will be good training, and maybe I will finally start blogging. :)