Utilizing multimedia sources is so important in the classroom – I really appreciate that this was brought up in class today. I want to look into Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning as I think it’s so integral to present information in multiple ways to allow for deeper integration and understanding.
I remember when I was in high school my best friend could hear something and memorize it immediately – without any visual prompts. Everyone is different, and I realized that I needed a different approach than she did in order to absorb and understand content. It’s incredibly helpful for me to see visual representations, whether it be key points on a powerpoint during a lecture, a video, or photos/diagrams/art alongside audio or text. We speak about this idea quite a bit in our Multiliteracies course – the importance of “multimodal” ways of delivery and allowing students to show their learning through multimodal means.
As I spoke about in class, I’ve been able to interact with students at my school placement who require multiple medias to understand a topic. Multimedia can be especially helpful for students who have disabilities, hearing or visual impairments, and for students whose first language is not English. Multimedia also opens up so so many more avenues for students to creatively express themselves, straying away from more ‘traditional’ assessment practices and moving towards a more student focused model. Understanding the importance of multimodal classrooms/multimedia use is ultimately making students feel included, seen, and valued in the classroom as learners.
