EDCI591: Self-Explanation Principle, Remixed

I was having trouble exporting this with sound for a while but seem to have it figured out finally. 

As I introduce in the video above, I selected my remix chapter for EDCI 591 (Multimedia Learning) based on the hunch that the principle aligned with my own views about critical reflection and learning, that the simple act of narrating one’s process can allow for meaningful personalized learning. So I set about the process of recording and summarizing my efforts to digest the chapter from Mayer’s text, the results of which are shared in the video.

In my reading, I found my initial expectations mostly met by the research collected in the chapter, as the broad trends show that in highly complex (see: authentic) learning environments, open-ended self-explanation can lead students to:

  • Repair mental models,
  • Identify previously held misconceptions, and
  • Make inferences between learning materials.

For my own part, I found the process of open-ended explanation of my emerging understanding of the topic to be supportive of each of these endeavors, which I discuss in the video.

A large part of the research highlighted in the chapter supports the efficacy of prompted self-explanation to support the learning of specific outcomes. If we imagine the different prompts falling on a continuum between open and closed, we see the former indicating a truly open-ended self-explanation process, and the latter being more specifically directed by the teacher or learning management system.

Much of the research shared in the chapter documents the success of direct prompts to facilitate the learning of specified outcomes. Open-ended explanations, for example, will not be as supportive in learning one’s multiplication tables, as a process where prompts direct the learner toward the salient areas of the problem to be solved.

However, an interesting extension of these findings is the role played by student engagement in the effectiveness of learning. And by introducing Chi’s ICAP Framework, we begin to see that while directed self-explanation may lead to the most efficient means of learning an educational program’s outcomes, more open-ended prompts may induce greater engagement in learning, thereby generating more learning.

Briefly, Chi’s (2009) ICAP framework 

classifies learning activities based on cognitive engagement and predicts that as student engagement increases from Passive to Active to Constructive to Interactive (I > C > A > P), student learning will increase.

The intersection of these points, for me, aligns with the role that critical pedagogy plays in bringing about meaningful learning in authentic, complex learning environments where outcomes cannot be foreseen, lessons are personal, and driven by the individual. And it is in this intersection that open-ended self-explanation can become a means of engaging an ongoing critical praxis for teachers as well as students.

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