Substantive Post #2

The ICAP framework includes Passive, Active, Constructive, and Interactive. It claims that learning increases as engagement becomes more generative and socially responsive. As someone who likes to indulge in the gaming world, my experiences with video game learning supports is pretty solid. An example of this would be video game tutorials. In the game Arc Raiders, when you first download the game and start it, it makes you play an interactive tutorial. Instead of just having a page full of controls it guides you through the different aspects of the game and lets you play and test the majority of controls. Merrill’s principles are more commonly applied in in-game support, such as activation, demonstration, application and integration, which are all examples of Merrill’s principles that are used.

This course has demonstrated a perfect balance of passive and active learning. Personally, I find it difficult to always read pages of notes and information, but in this course, the use of pictures, diagrams, and links to videos makes learning easy. Being able to pause and rewind videos and be able to watch and understand content at my own pace improves my understanding of all the material. Since being a Computer Science student majority of my classes are all text-heavy, so I have to create diagrams to fully grasp the content, but if they included learning strategies from Mayer and Merrill, it would make the course content easier to understand.

In the reading,  Students Need to DO Something, I can relate to their experiences. In high school majority of my classes were very text-heavy, where in fact we would just read and write notes about 90% of the time. Looking back at this after learning more about active learning, it makes sense because I always had a harder time understanding the material fully. This was also until I took Urban Studies in Grade 10, in this class, the teacher always made us get up and play games that would resonate with the course. This was way more effective for me, as my grade in the class reflected this.

In my opinion, active learning should become more adaptable. Understanding that, in specific situations, active learning cannot be done, but an effort should be made. Based on my personal experiences, active learning helped me not only in high school but also in university. Students without active learning were 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in a course that included active learning is just one example of why active learning is very important. It makes learning fun and increases enthusiasm for learners and teachers.