EDUC 300

"A learning contract is a collaboratively written agreement between a student and a faculty member that delineates what is to be learned, how it will be learned, and how that learning will be evaluated. There are many different ways to design a learning contract, incorporating as many or as few elements as you wish. Despite this flexibility, there is a general format which the majority of learning contracts follow: Identify what content will be learned Specify the methods and strategies that will be used to learn the content Specify resources to be used in order to learn the content Specify the type of evidence that will be used to demonstrate learning Specify how the evidence will be validated, and by whom"

First, we propose a theory of multimedia learning based on the assumptions that humans possess separate systems for processing pictorial and verbal material (dual-channel assumption), each channel is limited in the amount of material that can be processed at one time (limited-capacity assumption), and meaningful learning involves cognitive processing including building connections between pictorial and verbal representations (active-processing assumption). Second, based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, we examine the concept of cognitive overload in which the learner's intended cognitive processing exceeds the learner's available cognitive capacity. Third, we examine five overload scenarios. For each overload scenario, we offer one or two theory-based suggestions for reducing cognitive load, and we summarize our research results aimed at testing the effectiveness of each suggestion. Overall, our analysis shows that cognitive load is a central consideration in the design of multimedia instruction.