E-Learning and Critical Thinking

I realized today that with all the technology going into classrooms, lesson planning and lesson creation should and must change.  E-learning principles such as multimedia, modality, and the contiguity principles should be used to create lessons that are engaging and relevant.

In my professional development session known as Lesson Planning for All, I used the contiguity principle to make sure that the graphics and the text were aligned.  For example, on slide 6 this picture appears with the word PROCESS right below.  The reason for this is to draw attention to the poster and engage teachers in a discussion regarding what they might know about students who are high or low process learners.

PROCESS

I was explaining this to my room mate when she asked, "What happened with: "see figure below?"  I explained to her that placing the graphic in close proximity near the text allows the learner to focus on the concepts and lowers the cognitive stress of trying to figure out where the figure/ graphic is located.