Coherence Principle

Picture it. Science class. 2003.

You open your science textbook and start reading the assigned chapter on moon phases, but what to your wondering eyes should appear but a random thought bubble and anecdote about space travel. Been there? If so, you've experienced a distraction that was evidence of violation of Clark and Mayer's Coherence Principle. Simply stated, the coherence principle class for the removal of irrelevant text, graphics, or audio that does not directly support the desired learning outcomes for the lesson. Generally speaking, Clark and Mayer are referring to e-learning and online lessons for their research but their principles would fall into my category of "just good teaching" and therefore are applicable to a variety of learning situations.

For this week's learning log, we were tasked with analyzing our past experiences with online, Power-point style lessons, and how they successfully or unsuccessfully adhered to the coherence principle. In my analysis, I looked at a lesson that is taught at my current campus for both in-person and online students and how the two situations are impacted by the coherence principle. I also analyzed a youtube video lesson that has been previously used by teachers at my campus for how the video creator followed the coherence principle in the creation of his content.

My analysis on the coherence principle can be read HERE.