Week Five - More Learning Theories and Graphic Design

 This semester has been a bit rough re-acclimating myself to vocabulary that has not been in the front of my mind for 20 years. This week brought back many words that were buried deep down in my long-term memory. My Psychology of Human Learning professor would be proud to know she did force us to memorize definitions for nothing. 

What I find most helpful to consider is how all the theories of learning piece together. Each theory adds another piece to the puzzle. Using them on their own would leave learners lacking on various levels. A recent campfire conversation with friends revolved around their 1st graders math homework and the concept behind common core math. One of the mom’s, an early childhood educator herself, was a bit frustrated with the amount of higher-level thinking required by her daughter before she’d even begun to learn math facts. Another mom was frustrated with the abundance of strategies being taught to her son. She said having different strategies is good but her son has never had any of the strategies solidify before they have moved on to the next strategy. It is overwhelming to him as he does not have the tools in place to decide which strategy will be effective for him. We chatted a bit about the need to memorize math facts and balancing that with being able to problem-solve. At this stage, neither mom was too concern with pure discovery learning in regard to math.

I found Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning to be the most interesting article from this week’s list. Mayer states, “In multimedia learning, active processing requires five cognitive processes: selecting words, selecting images, organizing words, organizing images and integrating” (p. 45). As I continued to read and think through the various forms of cognitive overload I couldn’t help but reflect on the commonly accepted principles of design (or visual hierarchy). There is a bit of discrepancy in how many principles should be included on the list but the six I was taught in school and have seen most often are balance, proximity, alignment, repetition, contrast, and space (Lasquite, 2016). Understanding these principles and how they work together is vital to produce a quality design. It seems to me that the reason these principles have been established is because of cognitive overload. Users need to interact with multimedia in a way that matches their cognitive capacity. Designers must be knowledgeable enough to break material down into chunks that enable users to maximize their cognitive capacity. Another graphic design aspect that comes to mind is visual path. There should be a clearly defined visual path that the user’s eye will follow simply because the design lends itself to that particular path. Poorly designed materials lack a visual path and thus the user is on overload before they even get started unsure of where to start and where to go next.


Lasquite, M. (2016). What Makes Good Design? Basic Elements and Principles. Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://visme.co/blog/elements-principles-good-design/

Mayer, R., E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43-52.

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