Biography
Biography: Tony Macknight
Abstract
E-learning has become ‘fashionable’ and the internet hosts an increasing number of modules and courses from simple lessons to MOOCS. But how best to design these? We now understand better than ever before how people actually learn and we should design our materials to enhance that learning. We learn by taking information from the environment through our sensory inputs into our working memory. Our working memory is very limited and we must not overload it. We need to process the information there, rehearse it and link it to knowlege we already have in long-term memory. There are four fundamental steps that facilitate learning: First, the learner must focus on key graphics and words – both are necessary to enhance learning. Second, the learner must rehearse this information in working memory to organize it and integrate it with existing knowledge in long-term memory. Third, in order to do this integration, the limited working memory that we all have, must not be overloaded. Fourth, new knowledge stored in long-term memory must be able to be retrieved when needed in the future and so must be learnt in context. With this template in mind, I shall take, as an example, a simple lesson and analyse how the material in this is best presented to maximise student learning.