Chapter 10 – Leveraging Examples in e-learning
Worked examples are one of the most powerful methods you can use to build new
cognitive skills, and they are popular with learners.
Worked example is a step – by – step demonstration of how to perform a task or
solve a problem. Worked examples are designed to help learners build procedural
skills such as how to use a spreadsheet or strategic skills such as how to conduct a
negotiation. Again they segment information into manageable parts.
Worked Examples:
Principle 1 Transition from worked examples to full problems via fading.
Principle 2 Include self-explanation questions with your worked examples.
Principle 3 supplement worked examples with effective explanations.
Apply multimedia principles of modality, redundancy, contiguity and chunking to
the design of your worked examples
Principle 4 Apply the multimedia principles to the design of your examples.
The context you use for your examples will affect the transferability of the new
knowledge that learners build from the examples. How the educator constructs the
example scenarios will influence the degree to which learners are able to apply new
skills learned from them after the training.
Principle 5 Support learning transfer through effective design of context of worked
examples.
Transition from worked examples to problems via fading – or Expertise reversal
effect. Novices benefit from the cognitive load relief of studying an example rather
than working a problem as the basis of initial learning. Once the new knowledge is
stored in memory, studying a worked example adds no value. A FADING process
accommodates the growth of expertise by starting with full worked examples and
progressing gradually into full problem assignments.
Fading is where the first worked example is completely worked the second has a
segment missing the third more missing and so on. The process fads until the
learner works the entire problem
Promote self-explanations of worked out steps
Self-explanation questions are an interaction usually multiple choice in multimedia
that required the learner to review the worked out steps and identify the underlying
principles or concepts behind them.
Supplement worked examples with explanations –
Provide detailed explanations of initial worked examples for novice learners
As the lesson progresses, make explanations shorter and available on
demand or in response to an error to a self-explanation question.
Chapter 10 – Leveraging Examples in e-learning
Write explanations that make the connection between the steps and
underlying principles clear and
Position explanations close to the location of the worked step that is being
explained that is apply the contiguity principle.
Apply multimedia principles to examples, relevant visuals benefit learning in
contrast where possible include relevant visuals to illustrate the steps. Present the
example in audio rather than audio and text. When including self-explanation
questions it will also be better to present the steps and the questions in text,
permitting flexible review of those steps in order to correctly identify the
appropriate principle.
Present steps with integrated text contiguity principle. Also in manageable chunks.
Tips for design of worked examples:
Provide relevant visual illustrations
Use audio to present steps related to a visual: use text to present steps when
there is no accompanying visuals
Use integrated text to present steps for faded worked examples or when
including self-explanation questions
Provide explanations of worked examples in text
Avoid presenting words in both text and audio
Segment worked examples with many steps into conceptually meaningful
chunks and use labels to highlight the chunks and
Allow learners to access each chunk at their own pace, rather than playing all
of the steps continuously
Procedures require near transfer – the goal is to help learners apply steps learned in
the training to similar situations in the work environment.
Far transfer goal is to help learners adapt strategies learned in the training to work
environment where each situation will vary.
Encoding specificity states that the cues you will use to retrieve information after
learning must be embedded at the time of learning. For near transfer learning
worked examples incorporate the same context that workers will encounter on the
job. We demonstrate the job or training in the learned example. By emulating the
work environment in the training interface learners will encode new skills in the
same context in which they will be retrieved later.
Far Transfer
Knowledge that can only be derived from multiple examples with different contexts
or story lines but with the same underlying principles. Help learners build
strategies that can be retrieved and applied to new problems that emerge in the
work environment.
Chapter 10 – Leveraging Examples in e-learning
Varied work examples are several worked examples that illustrate some common
set of principles in which you vary the cover story but keep the relevant solution
methods or principle the same, When teaching far transfer skills, build several
worked examples in which you vary the cover story but illustrate the same
guidelines in each.
To promote an active comparison asks the learner to state or identify the common
guidelines shared by the two worked examples.
Recommendations for near and far transfer:
Incorporate the environment of the job as closely as possible in worked
examples designed to support learning of near-transfer tasks
Include at least two worked examples that vary their cover stories but
embody similar principles to support learning of far transfer tasks and
Promote active comparison of far-transfer worked examples by a continuous
display of the examples plus interactions that require the learners to focus on the
common principles.