Multimodal Mastery Learning

Educators frequently encourage and value the use of a variety of media in student work, as learners design their knowledge representations using rich, multimodal sources and embedding multiple types of complementary media—photographs, diagrams, tables, data visualizations, videos, and raw datasets. The pedagogical and cognitive benefits of shifting meaning representation across a range of integrated modalities enriches their understanding. In this paper we present our experiences and findings from a case-study in which graduate learners are engaged in the creation of knowledge artefacts as part of their evidentiary work in an online environment. The e-learning portal we created supports and enables the incorporation of all types of new media through its “Creator” interface as they move incrementally towards subject-matter mastery. We present the rationale behind our design, together with methodologies employed to encourage the creative use of diverse yet complementary media. Finally, we present results from qualitative data collected and analysed regarding the use of rich, multimodal sources, as we come to a close with a number of conclusions and recommendations.