Less teaching! I shout to myself. But is it really?
Gavriel Salomon wrote a great book titled Interaction of Media, Cognition, and Learning in.... I'll tell you the year later ;)
The beginning of the book explains much about symbol systems and how they develop what and how we think. In a nut shell, a symbol system is a set of specific, grouped references that are tied to a specific set of rules...all "unspoken" in a culture, but that are there and known by all. It is a "coded message" in where the perceived similarity is associated with its common attributes (19-43).
How then does this relate to media? You are now shouting at me...
In order for "learning" to take place as a result of the chosen media (game, video, app), the existence of the understood symbol system must precede the correct identification of its depiction. Whatever skill you are trying to teach must have been taught prior to the media learning experience or it will not register as a learning experience. It is just "fun" and not educational.
I was a little bummed. I still have to teach... :) The learner's perception is guided by what their past experiences and knowledge of the subject is and that will determine what stimuli will be picked up from the media presentation (46).
So now what? Don't give up! This is easy to remedy!
- Before you tune in, briefly pull up what they already know about the subject so that you are accessing prior knowledge.
- Give direct guidance as to what the goal of the experience is so that their brain will know what pattern it is recognizing and discriminating.
But wait! There's more...
What I find extremely interesting about media and cognition is this: Media has taken the brain's role of coding and decoding information. It has and is training us (programming us) for immediate recognition of these developed and created symbol systems which then reinforce the "creator's" links and associations. Taking it a step farther, because of the quality of the resemblance of these symbol systems, we are training ourselves to see the perceived system as reality, as opposed to just a representation. Our cognitive and developmental states then affect these "handles" to the symbol systems (50).
A movie is not a symbol system in and of itself, but it is a medium that uses many symbol systems simultaneously that we process as lifelike due to the "real" images (photographic frames). In fact, the fast pacing of the frames and the changing of scenes makes us attend to it more, but at a deficit to understanding (information processing). By the way, the pace also affects hyperactivity.
Overall, different symbolic modes of information are processed in different parts of the brain and they vary with respect to:
- the amount of mental translation that is required for the getting and thinking of the information
- the kinds of mental skills needed in order to learn the material
- the meanings that you can construe from the messages (which is why guidance is key)
- and the mental skills that they symbol systems want to cultivate (64)
If you want to learn about X, then you need to make sure that the mode of presenting X matches with what is already known or you will be making more internal work because it doesn't fit the person's known pattern. Transformation from the surface to deep structure takes time and mental manipulation (68). We can't just present it and have it be absorbed without any personal interactive work. Intellectual maturity is key to the transformation process. As the instructor, we are "lending" them our maturity in order to help them process it.
As a teacher or parent, correctly determining how much mental elaboration you need to assist with is an important factor in developing cognition, or understanding, from the material. This is where all the "Multiple Intelligence" and "learning style" preferences come into play because those are the tangible pieces of how the person learns to store their "internal representations," AKA interactions with the symbol systems!
There is way too much going on "behind the scenes" for a broad spectrum game, video, or app to teach an individual a new skill to the point of mastery. This is especially difficult for a child due to their lack of life experience and limited knowledge!
But this is just my opinion....Let me back it up even more ;)
Let me give you an illustration between learning by watching TV and by reading a book.
TV is easier to process because it is mainly pictures, which is a non-linguistic mental system (you know the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words? It is. A picture is easier to store.) The use of pictures short circuits the coding process in order to increase comprehension. Imagery instructions increase learning by helping to translate the paired associations from one mode to another (69, 81); It pre-processes it, just like the mama bird chewing up the worm before feeding it to the baby bird. Good image, huh?!
In order to read a book, you need to first learn the code and how to interpret the code (sounds and letters). In fact, how well you learned to decode plays a huge role in how quickly and accurately you interpret the code. Did you know that as you read, your brain is actually phonetically sounding out every word?! How well you know and recognize the patterns of sounds and their corresponding letter combinations is a crucial skill in determining reading ability. Reading actually is a reliance on a symbol system whose referents are not directly linked to experiential and imagery cognitive systems. Meaning is therefore tied to the individual's stored knowledge and is more inferential which leads to better associations being made to other experiences. The reader has to mentally manipulate and transform the code into meaning at the pace they set for comprehension.
TV's "meaning" is more likely to be segmented, concrete, and less inferential, less able to promote development.
Processing must always take place for skill development.
You see, in order to cultivate a skill, a symbol system must be sufficiently demanding to upgrade the skill beyond its previous level of mastery (82). By using a symbol system that short circuits a deficiency, it will impede skill development. The flip side is that it will not necessarily impede knowledge acquisition, just the life long skill of how to get the knowledge themselves.
So a book is always better...but what if I want the fun and excitement of media?!
Three things need to be in place in order for "effective instructional communication" to happen when using media's symbol systems to capitalize on strengths or compensate for skill deficiencies:
- the mature ability to automatically transfer the code into meaning through significance and practice
- general cognitive development needs to precede skill cultivation
- tutoring or mentoring on how to use it as a tool of thought (coined as "literate viewing") for improved chunking of information (212)
I really want to include two technical quotes from the end of his book as food for thought, without me digesting them for you ;)
The introduction of TV had a consistent negative effect on reading abilities because as the children acquired new nonverbal skills from the non-notational elements of the medium, the notational skills (skills of classification, judgement, knowledge of rules, and reference correspondence) that need to be over learned to serve reading were not exercised.
[and] the relatively easy re-coding of messages done by TV medium keeps them away from more intellectually demanding symbol systems. [This] leads to a failure to cultivate the skills related to that symbol systems as well as more demanding symbol systems (244)
If you want learning to absolutely take place from a media resource:
- The learner has to have prior knowledge and systems in place and know how, when, and what to access prior to media learning experience. Any child can do that independently, right? So...
- The mentor needs to take a top-down approach to the subject (big picture overview of skills for developing proficiency) to discuss and highlight what skill is being learned and why
- Followed by specific skill development in order to then construct meaning (bottom-up processing)
- The mentor or learner needs to match the media to the skill or knowledge acquisition goal
- The mentor needs to aid in perception
After taking the time to do all that I ask you, "Is the game, video, or app all that much easier?" :)
Oh, and the book was written first in 1979 and then a second edition was revised in 1994. I find it interesting that not much of the findings has changed presently despite all the new media networks. This supports his explanation of symbol systems in that new media and technology interacts with existing symbol systems through the new combinations of subsystems. They are all mediums of rendering information through a network of overlapping attributes. It's keeping it in the family while remaining distinct!