I took my first French class in 10th grade at a public school in a small Alabama town. The class was typical of most high-school foreign language courses. We spoke mostly in English and the assessments were designed to ensure that no one would fail the class. Vocabulary tests typically asked us to pair French terms in column A with their English equivalents in column B, like so:

Grammar tests were only slightly more challenging and usually consisted of simple sentences with missing verbs to conjugate, as shown below:

I often memorized the verb conjugations the night before (or in some cases, just minutes before the start of the test), then filled in blanks feverishly the minute the exam was in my hands. Speed was key, since my mental snapshot of the proper endings for each verb would begin to blur after five to ten minutes. Occasionally, we were subjected to some other form of memorization torture. This usually involved reciting poems or singing French Christmas carols.

That first year, I thought my French was formidable. (Or, as the French would say, “formidable.”) I could rattle off the French names of almost any object in the classroom. I could tell you exactly how to say I go, you go, and we go. (Saying where I, you, or we were going wasn’t always so easy.) The following year, I transferred to the Alabama School of Math and Science (ASMS), a rigorous magnet boarding school in Mobile. I had to take a French placement exam before enrolling at ASMS, and I knew I was in trouble when there wasn’t a single matching question on the test. My horrible score on the placement exam meant I had to start all over again with French I—along with nearly every other student who had taken a year (and in some cases, two years) of traditional high-school French.

On my first day of French class at ASMS, my teacher explained that our lessons would be built around French In Action, a series of videos designed to teach us French through total immersion. (“Videos” really isn’t the right word, since we viewed everything on gigantic laserdiscs.) As we watched the first few episodes, I was completely overwhelmed. I wondered what language I had been studying for the past year in my hometown, because it certainly wasn’t whatever those people on the screen were using to communicate with each other.

French In Action was part soap opera, part Sesame Street, and it wasn’t great at being either. The storylines were bland and the lesson recaps were repetitive. Yet, despite the actors’ dated haircuts, the overacting, the two-dimensional characters, and the ludicrous plot twists (or perhaps because of them), the whole class was hooked. We were so hungry for anything other than the usual verb conjugation tables and vocabulary memorization that we actually felt invested in the simple narratives. We cheered when Mireille’s bratty sister fell in a fountain in the park. We leaned forward with anticipation when it seemed Robert would finally ask Mireille on a date, and we laughed when our teacher tried to explain a new verb or noun through her own unique system of charades. She would flail her arms wildly, run around the room, improvise with props—anything to avoid a direct translation to English. The goal was to make us think in French, and that’s exactly what the class did.

I went on to major in French in undergrad and was the first student at the University of Alabama to participate in a semester-long exchange program with a French university. (There was another student who was supposed to join me for the adventure, but she went home when she discovered the dorm rooms didn’t offer private bathrooms.) After my semester in France, I decided to move to Germany to live with a few German friends I had made in France. I didn’t speak a word of German at the time.

By the time I left Germany five months later, my spoken German was nearly as good as my French. Of course, there were times when I wished I had learned a few basic grammar rules the old-fashioned way. I was forced to rely on my instincts when trying to conjugate a verb in a complex tense or pair the proper article with a masculine, feminine, or neuter noun. And I still couldn’t explain key differences in the four German cases—nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive—if my life depended on it. However, none of that stopped me from understanding and participating in lots of great conversations with my German friends or communicating with strangers at the grocery store or the pharmacy.

My experience learning German made me wonder (more than ever before) why student progress in learning a new language is still assessed through fill-in-the-blank tests and short essays. Before the days of YouTube, I could understand why an immersive approach to foreign language education was easier said than done. I can still recall how my class “oohed” and “aahed” years ago when one of my professors brought in a VHS tape with a few grainy episodes of Friends that she had recorded while in France. She clutched the precious black plastic cartridge tightly, hugging it to her chest as though she feared one of us might snatch it from her before she could insert it into the VCR. She told us that it cost over two hundred dollars to convert the tape to a North American video format, and we all shook our heads to express our disbelief and our gratitude.

Until recently, supplying students with a German episode of The Simpsons or a Japanese news broadcast required about as much planning and sacrifice as a cocaine smuggling operation. A devoted instructor might record a soap opera during a vacation abroad and carry the tape home like a priceless artifact from an archaeological dig. Once the tape was transported safely, the search would begin for the rare translator of foreign media formats—an elusive code breaker who could make the artifact accessible to the instructor’s students. Today, a wealth of foreign media is only a click away.

So, why isn’t everyone leveraging foreign-language media to create more immersive learning experiences? Some instructors might argue that, YouTube or no YouTube, good foreign language education isn’t primarily about learning enough to understand words and phrases used in popular entertainment and carry on an everyday conversation. The argument over what’s really important in language education (grammar, syntax, and spelling vs. general comprehension and diction) is nothing new. Yet, no matter which side you sympathize with, I think most instructors agree that video and audio can go a long way to promote thinking in a foreign language (as opposed to translation), reinforce key concepts, and burn words and phrases into long-term memory. This brings me to the critical, concluding question of my article, which I hope you will respond to by answering the survey below. (And feel free to provide further feedback by posting a comment.)

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My colleagues have contributed some very practical discussions of tools and theories for teaching and learning. My entry—which I hope will stimulate some conversation—takes a slightly different direction: research in technology and learning.

The Clark/Kozma delivery truck debate¹ shifted the focus of educational technology research away from comparing media or delivery systems (i.e. is using a video lecture better than a face-to-face lecture?) to a more systems-based agenda. This approach recognizes that technologies do not stand on their own, but rather teaching strategy, context, and technology/media each play their part in the learning process. This holistic form of analysis encourages educational researchers to address the following questions:

• What are the particular strengths of a particular tool when used in a particular context to support particular teaching strategies?
• Conversely, what are the strengths of particular teaching strategies to support students in a particular instructional context, such as an online learning context?

As an example, Roblyer and Knezek (2003) suggest one research focus might be on ways to increase the learning impact of technologies already in common use. PowerPoint is an existing, commonly used technology. How might one examine the instructional benefits of PowerPoint in a particular learning situation?

We start—as always—with the learning objective: what will the students know, or be able to do? Consider the following example: “Students will be able to describe the overall concept behind and components of the Kreb’s cycle.” To assess this objective, we create standardized grading guidelines (a.k.a. rubrics) for an essay question assessment. Armed with a rubric and a specific assessment method, we can attempt to determine which of the following approaches will best help students grasp this concept quickly and retain it longer.

1. The concept is described by the instructor in a classroom lecture using a text-only PowerPoint that is then placed on Blackboard for 24/7 access.
2. The concept is described by the instructor in the classroom using a graphical PowerPoint that is then placed on Blackboard for 24/7 access.
3. Students collaborate to create a graphical PowerPoint describing the cycle and share it on Blackboard 24/7 with their fellow students.

In each case, the PowerPoint is posted on Blackboard. However, there are differences in the media—one is textual, one is graphical—between instances 1 and 2. The difference between these two cases and case three is, of course, the active-learning instructional strategy of having students collaboratively create the PowerPoint representation of their learning.

I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts on directions in research on teaching, learning and technology. What technologies and teaching strategies work well in your disciplinary context? Let’s start a conversation!

¹Roblyer, M.D. (2003). New millennium research for educational technology: A call for a national research agenda. Journal of Research on Technology in Education 36(1) 60-1.

Let me start by asking you some questions:

• Do you take notes while listening to a lecture?
• Do you multi-task thinking that you can get more things done with less time?
• Do you try to address as many learning styles as possible in the learning material you’re developing?
• Do ask your students to practice again and again, thinking that more practice will ensure greater learning?
• Do you use various media when designing learning materials in order to meet the needs of visual learners, auditory learners, and students with disabilities?
• Do you use the teaching cycle of giving students an example and the asking them to solve a similar problem by themselves? Do you repeat such a cycle as a way to build on students’ skills?
• Do you think helping faculty master Blackboard would prepare them to learn another course management system?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, read on to get a glimpse of the cognitive load theory and Ruth Clark’s book Efficiency in Learning. If you are as open and “persuadable” as I am, you may join me in identifying some more myths.

To me, cognitive load theory is like an analogy of the computer vs. the human brain: the hard drive is your long-term memory while the RAM is your working memory. The RAM of your brain or the working memory is a determinant in how quickly you can learn. As your brain gets “booted up” for a learning process, there are three kinds of workloads it has to take:

1. the necessary load or the “intrinsic cognitive load,”
2. the unnecessary load or the “extraneous cognitive load,” (This includes distractions or confusion caused by bad instruction.)
3. and the load that helps connect learning with your own experiences or the “germane cognitive load.” The goal of instructional design is to manage the intrinsic load, minimize the extraneous, and promote the germane load.

I believe that instructional design is a science of “common sense”—the most direct channel to make people “get it.” However, there are a few practices that seem to be based on common sense, but are merely myths when you plug in the cognitive load theory. Here are seven of them I’d like to share with you:

Myth 1: Taking notes helps reinforce learning.

Research cited in Ruth Clark’s book indicated that the effort of capturing what the lecturer is saying and recording it in a written format will only add more extraneous cognitive load to your brain. This leaves less room for your brain to process the content of the lecture. So, as a learner, it would be more beneficial to replace note-taking with jotting the key points during or after the lecture. As an instructor, you should prepare lecture notes for your students and tell them that instead of writing down what you’re saying, they should think about it and reflect upon it.

Myth 2: Multi-tasking makes the learner accomplish more.

Multi-tasking will work effectively if all or the majority of the tasks have become automatic behaviors. In other words, the tasks should be something that you have been doing repeatedly, making them embedded into your long-term memory so that they require minimal working memory to process. However, if you really are to learn something, you better free up your working memory as much as possible. So, tell your students that they can listen to the radio while driving, but stop text-messaging while doing their homework.

Myth 3: In designing learning materials, we should address as many learning styles as possible.

Now let me share with you the only note I’ve taken from Ruth Clark’s workshop: “… cognitive commonality overrules individuality.” I jotted it down because it is such a brave statement. As Ruth Clark said, “I am expecting rotten tomatoes thrown at me for saying this.” Not from me, Ruth. Actually, I am in concert with her in disclosing this myth. When you design a learning object or training tutorial, the attempt to ensure “no child is left behind” may actually leave everybody behind. Instead of accommodating every student’s learning preference, designers should focus their energy on addressing the cognitive commonality that has been scientifically approved, such as letting users control the pace of the learning. process. As for individuality, leave the options that can be controlled by the learner. For example, allow the learner to turn on the audio to hear narration instead of leaving it on by default.

Myth 4: Practice makes perfect.

Does this rule apply to things beyond playing musical instrument? Well, research conducted by learning scientists indicates that more errors are introduced when practice goes beyond certain timeframe. I think this is the way that your mind tells you “O-kay, I got it. Stop exhausting me!” So, think about the amount of practice you want to assign to the students. By the way, I wish I could send this information to my elementary, middle, and high-school teachers in China. If I had a dollar for every hour I spent writing each Chinese character 100 times, I’d be a millionaire!

Myth 5: Multimedia improves learning by addressing multiple learning styles.

Insert the images for visual learners, add the audio narration for the auditory ones, and don’t forget the text for people who like to read. (And be sure to make the text big and bold for the visually impaired). Oh, and what about some background music for today’s multi-sensory learners? Thanks to today’s technology, all these requests can be easily accomplished through multimedia. The question is: will this piece of multimedia help people to learn better? The answer is likely to be no because media redundancy distracts learners. It adds unnecessary workload (extraneous cognitive load) to the brain, leaving less room for it to process the information. So, instructional designers who are constantly tempted by various fancy tech tools ought to remember that making things simple and direct remains the rule of thumb.

Myth 6: Giving examples followed by practice, followed by another example, followed by more practice (“example + practice + example + practice + example + practice”) is an effective way to teach.

Although the effectiveness of this method is questionable, this was a method often used by my teachers. Today, I still rely on this method from time to time when I teach. When compared with this formula [(example + practice) x N], research found that another formula which provides various examples before asking students to practice (example + example + example +example…+ practice) proved to be a more efficient way to learn. However, providing students with examples on which to model their own work can be problematic in its own right. I often debate whether or not I should give students a completed sample of an assignment. On the one hand, it may help clarify my expectations. Yet, on the other hand, it may also lock students to a pattern and constrain their creativity. If you share the same concern, let’s try giving students a diverse variety of examples so that they don’t follow one pattern and can practice better and learn more.

Myth 7: Being an expert of one course management system makes it easier to learn another.

Research shared by Ruth Clark shows that when expert and novice chess players were given a random chessboard, the novice group actually remembered it better than the experts. Why? Because the experts are confused by the meaningless layout of the board and are subconsciously going through a process of differentiating the “new look” with the one that they are familiar with. Those who are familiar with the layout and navigation scheme of Blackboard face the same frustration when they have to learn another system that is structured differently. This finding brings an alert to decision makers to think more carefully in selecting or changing technology solutions for users, especially those who are already comfortable using one particular application. (This is true even if they also complain about it.) The finding also echoes Gerry McGovern’s call to end web redesign in his article “Web Redesign is a Bad Strategy.” McGovern advocates that designers put more energy into improving content and simplifying the existing structure instead of building a new one.

What’s next?

Feel free to share any teaching myths or miracles by leaving a comment.