The most common tools individuals use to articulate complex and abstract concepts are writing and spoken language, long privileged as primary forms of communication. However, our, explanations of these concepts may be more aptly communicated through visual means, such as drawings. Interpreting and analyzing abstract graphic representations is…

Learner-centered environments effectively implement multiple teaching techniques to enhance students' higher education experience and provide them with greater control over their academic learning. This qualitative study involves an exploration of the eight reasons for learner-centered teaching found in Terry Doyle's 2008 book, "Helping…

The purpose of this study was to examine if student understanding of new material could be promoted by manipulating the perceptual factors experienced at the time of learning. It was hypothesized that the thematic relevance of perceptual factors would be a significant contributor to learner understanding. To test this hypothesis, one hundred…

In education the linguistic is the mode most commonly assessed because it is important for students to write clear, complex pieces to show their understanding of content. However, in worlds outside of classrooms additional modes, such as visual, aural, and digital are often used to convey messages. This article demonstrates the value of multimodal…

Unknowingly, much of the population of the Western World are thinking machines who live and learn isolated from somatic experiences. They distrust their bodies in the learning process and are stuck living out unquestioned realities of embodied socioculturalism and rationalism which guide decision making, learning and ways of being. Considering a…

Pertinent research literature recognizes the importance of using multimodalities to enhance and extend ways of learning across the curriculum in such subject areas as literacy, geology, media studies, physical education, social studies and disabilities studies. As an action researcher who constantly seeks ways to improve my own classroom practice,…

This article outlines the implications of a theory of "sensory-emplaced learning" for understanding the interrelationships between the embodied and environmental in learning processes. Understanding learning as multisensory and contingent within everyday place-events, this framework analytically describes how people establish themselves as…

In this paper I employ a narrative method to explore the learning processes of adult activists engaged in activism. Drawing on the story of one animal activist, I explain the embodied learning processes in a direct action environment. I explore how emotions and the body interplay with learning, which moves beyond a purely cognitive or rational…

The study examined whether the modality effect is caused by either high visuo-spatial load or a lack of temporal contiguity when processing written text and pictures. Students (N = 147) viewed pictures on the development of tornados, which were accompanied by either spoken or written explanations presented simultaneously with, before, or after the…

The purpose of this study was to define and better understand business school students' opinions and preferences on the design of a mobile marketing education application. To accomplish this purpose an explanatory mixed methods study design was used and the data was collected sequentially. First, a questionnaire was conducted with 168 business…

In this article, a design-oriented, multimodal understanding of learning will be outlined. There seems to be a need for a new conceptualisation of learning in an era characterised by an increasing virtual space, blended media and new communicative patterns. This means a broader understanding of learning, and a theoretical understanding of…

This article examines synergies and gaps in the construction of English, literacy, multimodality in policy and curriculum in Australian education with a focus on current assessment practices and educational accountability in order to make recommendations for future practice for teachers and for policy-makers. The article builds on analyses of the…

It is currently unknown whether statistical learning is supported by modality-general or modality-specific mechanisms. One issue within this debate concerns the independence of learning in one modality from learning in other modalities. In the present study, the authors examined the extent to which statistical learning across modalities is…

This article examines how it is possible to use the aesthetic process to enrich teaching practices in preschool and elementary school education. What is under scrutiny is the aesthetic dimension of a core curricular subject, the ultimate goal being to achieve an understanding of curricular content through aesthetic learning processes. For this…

This study explored the causes of the reverse modality effect when learning from multimedia instruction. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups (visual text or spoken text). The findings revealed a reverse modality effect wherein that those studying visual text outperformed those studying spoken text on three assessments. Further…