END OF SEMESTER REFLECTION

Kim Schreier

4/29/18
MEDT 7468 – Instructional Multimedia Design and Development
 Introduction
This assignment serves as an opportunity to reflect on my progress during this course.

The initial course goals assignment and the mid semester reflection set the stage for what I hoped

to accomplish this semester and helped me modify my goals. This assignment serves as a way to

reflect on the different material that I have learned and how I can apply the material to my

current classroom.

Course Goals

Previously stated, my course goal was to improve my knowledge and purpose using of

multimedia assignments and apply them to create something for my own classroom. Through

this course, I was able to apply multimedia principles to my own classroom projects. As I’ve

made instructional materials for my classroom, I have tried to follow the Coherence principle,

where I exclude irrelevant material. In the past, I have fallen into the trap that Clark & Mayer

( 2016) refer to as I would try to embellish lessons to motivate the learners, but in actuality, I was

distracting the learner and taking up working memory that is needed for learning the important

content. I’ve also altered my notes to include strong lines and boxes for important information.

I’ve also created several math tutorials where I video myself completing and explaining the math

problems. By utilizing the Personalization Principle, the students benefit from hearing my voice

as I explain the steps.

Learned Content

One skill that was emphasized throughout the course was the importance of the planning

documents. It made me stop and think about what I needed to include and why. In the rush of

preparing for classes, remediating students before school, and grading assignments after school, I
rarely made time to stop and think about the intention of graphics and text in my presentations.

These planning documents forced me to stop and think about what the purpose of the graphic and

text should be for my assignments. The planning document templates and evaluation resources

found in Ivers & Barron’s (2010) Multimedia Projects in Education are helpful for this purpose.

One new application of multimedia that I learned was how to use HyperStudio. I found it

user friendly and easy to create a lesson. I liked how the arrows allows the learner to go

forwards or backwards in a linear way, or the learner could go back to the title screen. It was

easy to embed pictures, links, and videos onto the platform. Unfortunately, I’m not able to use

HyperStudio on my work computer, but I did enjoy using it.

The three types of learner control is something that I had not heard of before. My district

is wanting teachers to use personalized learning, which parallels some of the types of learner

controls. Learner Control is so important in any learning process. Since different students learn

at different paces, come with different prior knowledge, and have different learning styles,

teachers need to offer choice and learner control in their classrooms.

Implications

The main improvements that I can make towards my instruction is to be more intentional

with my instructional material. By following the Multimedia Principles and planning process, I

can make more of an educational impact on my students. Every day, my students try to learn

new material from my lessons, videos, and worksheets that I provide. By utilizing some of the

Multimedia Principles, I can make this learning more efficient.

 In addition to my own instructional materials, I hope to be able to make more self-paced

lessons using HyperStudio, or another platform. My district is moving towards more

personalized learning, where the teachers serves the role of a facilitator. The idea of having

videos, examples, and then an assessment pieces aligns with this idea. Through this type of

platform, I would also be able to apply more learner control into my instruction. In the future, I

hope to make more of this type of material for my own math classroom instruction.

I also plan to use this material to help educate my colleagues. My school is full of

teachers who run professional development sessions for other teachers. I am hoping to work

with a colleague to create a presentation that will help educate other teachers about these

principles and includes some easy to use multimedia tools to share with teachers at my school.

Conclusion

Through this course, I have enjoyed the projects and class discussions. It is important to

understand multimedia principles and create instructional materials with specific intentions. In

the future, I hope to be able to dedicate more time to create more eLearning experiences for my

students where they can work at their own pace through the material. With teaching, you are

allowed to put a personal touch on your instructional materials. The information in this course

needs to be understood by more teachers.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven

guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA:

Pfeiffer.
 Ivers, K. & Barron, A. (2010). Multimedia projects in education: Designing,

producing, and assessing. (4th ed.) Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited.