Animation + Education= Creativity in the classroom
Animation is a 21st Century tool that makes learning accessible and exciting for all types of students and teachers.
Animation is emerging as a powerful 21st Century tool that makes learning accessible and exciting for all types of students and teachers. You might ask, “What makes animation so appealing to students and teachers alike?” Well, let’s examine the research about using animation in the classroom as an instructional tool. With the help of Donald Matthews PsyD and his research about “Animation as an Instructional and Motivational tool for Teachers” we’re sharing the answers to this question.
Engagement and Cognition
Visual media provides an engaging pathway for students to explore and understand academic content. Have you ever seen a student not benefit from having a visual representation of the content being taught? Teachers use graphic representations to teach a multitude of subjects and concepts. Animation further supports visual learning by linking visual images to concepts. Research cited by Dr. Matthews shows the relationship between animation and cognition. In his article, he shows how animation supports cognitive development. “Cognitive effort may be reduced with animation through the use of perceptual processes without overburdening cognition (Zhang & Norman, 1994). Learning can be further enhanced by adding narration to animation to increase its effectiveness in facilitating the acquisition of new information (Mayer, 2001).
Autonomy, Motivation, Self-Regulation, Attention and Goal Oriented Behavior
Animation as a motivational tool promotes autonomous behavior and increases the student’s ability to self regulate behavior and engage in the metacognitive processes of planning, monitoring, regulating and evaluating (Schraw et al., 2006, p. 114). Autonomous learning opportunities serve to enhance intrinsic motivation (Ryan and Deci, 1985, 2000). Dr. Matthews states that “Animation promotes autonomous behavior and increases the student’s ability to self regulate behavior by increasing locus of control. When students feel they have control of internal and external conditions, they are intrinsically motivated they become goal oriented and are able to sustain goal-oriented behavior meeting their needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy.”
Knowledge Transfer
As a learning tool, animation helps learners easily acquire information and construct new knowledge. Learning is a complex process involving visual and auditory processing skills, coding and memory and executive functions. Animation supports learning by helping students build mental models that support conceptual understanding. Dr. Matthews cites the research by Schnotz & Rasch (2005) which connects animation to cognitive processing suggesting that animations can provide additional information that cannot be displayed in still pictures by helping learners build mental models making cognitive processing easier.
So, “What makes animation so appealing to students and teachers alike?” Students are empowered to learn when given the opportunity to use animation as a learning tool. For teachers, animation is an engaging instructional tool in the toolbox to support student learning.
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References
Chan, Margaret, and John Black. “When can animation improve learning? Some implications on human computer interaction and learning.” World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications. Vol. 2005. №1. 2005.
Höffler, T. N., & Leutner, D. (2007). Instructional animation versus static pictures: A meta-analysis. Learning and instruction, 17(6), 722–738.
Matthews, D.D. (2017). Animation as an Instructional and Motivational Tool for Teachers. Presented at the APA Conference, Washington D.C. 2017. Retrievable at https://donaldmatthews.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/animation-as-an-instructional-and-motivational-tool-for-teachers-apa-conference-august-3-2017-washington-d-c/
Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The RSA Animate Revolution, (2015). Andrew Park and Richard Wiseman in conversation. Retrieved from https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/event-videos/2012/12/the-rsa-animate-revolution/
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68.
Schnotz, W., & Rasch, T. (2005). Enabling, facilitating, and inhibiting effects of animations in multimedia learning: Why reduction of cognitive load can have negative results on learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(3), 47–58.
Zhang, J. J., & Norman, D. A. (1994). Representations in distributed cognitive tasks. Cognitive Science, 18(1), 87–122.
