Reflection 1: Designing a Screencast Based on Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning

When creating a screencast for this module, I aimed to deliver a clear and engaging presentation that would resonate with first-year university students that may be overwhelmed with meal prepping for the first time. This reflection will highlight my reasoning for design choices, the principles of Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning that influenced my process, and the challenges I faced when creating this project.

To begin, when I first started designing the screencast, I imagined my audience as fellow students. I wanted to ensure that the content was relevant and accessible, leading me to consider Mayer’s principles. For instance, I applied the Coherence Principle to ensure that my visuals and narration were clear and free from unnecessary details. I chose this design to prevent cognitive overload. The Modality Principle helped me emphasize narration when conveying information to the audience. Text-heavy slides can increase cognitive load, therefore, conveying my information through narration can improve comprehension. In the future, I will include captions to improve the accessibility of my projects. Finally, the Pretraining Principle inspired me to establish foundational knowledge before introducing complex concepts. I first explained how to meal prep and budget before progressing to meal ideas and recipes. This design was intended to guide the audience through each step of the meal prepping process without overwhelming them.

One principle that I found challenging was the Signaling Principle. To further improve comprehension, I could increase audience engagement by having items appear on screen according to the order in which it is mentioned. This could increase audience attention throughout the presentation.

Overall, the process of creating this screencast highlighted the importance of applying multimedia principles to enhance educational content. By considering my audience and employing cognitive principles, I was able to design a more effective learning tool. Moving forward, I aim to further refine my understanding of these principles and their application, ensuring that I create engaging and informative content in the future.

Link to Screencast: https://youtu.be/ZagH0lb89sY