Practice Principle #2
Practice Principle #2 says practice exercises "must require learners to respond in a job-realistic context" (Clark & Mayer, 2011, p. 262). That is, practice must have students do more than merely recall factual information. Effective practice will have students to apply what they have learned to a task that mirrors an actual possible job. One place I have definitely seen this practice principle in effect is at the W3 Schools website. When choosing to learn HTML, a brief blurb is given to describe each HTML tag within a topic. Then, you can click "Try it yourself" to be taken to an open-ended practice session in which you can practice coding your desired content using the modeled tags as many times as necessary. You can edit the modeled code, or enter your own code, on the left of the Tryit Editor's screen and display the results on the right.
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Practice Principle #1
Based on research, Clark and Mayer say that "to decide how much practice your e-learning courses should include, consider the nature of the job task and the criticality of job performance and include more practice for highly critical skills" (2011, p. 262). As mentioned above, the Tryit Editor at W3 Schools allows you to practice an assigned element as many times as necessary until you feel it is mastered. W3 Schools proved an invaluable resource when I was in MEDT 7467 on web page design. I was initially terrified of HTML coding but eventually became confident in my abilities because of the immediate feedback I received from the results of my coding being displayed as I hoped, or sometimes as I entered in err. The fact that repetitive practice is left up to the learner ensures that it is only practiced as many times as is necessary, keeping the practice from becoming redundant or ineffective.
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References
Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.