Learning Science in Cengage Learning Design

Published: 8/23/2024

Reading Time: 4 minutes

After we published our last posts about learning design, instructors asked us – what’s the difference between learning science and learning design? Learning science is the study of how people learn and draws from many disciplines, including psychology, cognitive science, education and pedagogy, computer science, data analysis and statistics, and more. Learning design is the application of learning science to create effective learning experiences. When it comes to building our products at Cengage, we rely on both, because human-centered, student-focused program design is what we’re all about. 

As part of our learning science-informed process, we use data analytics, interactivity and personalization, and technology when revising or creating our content. Here are a few examples. 

Data analytics

As Cengage Learning Designers, we rely upon multiple types of data to inform product designs and revisions. For example, usage data shows us which activities get the most or the least use. This information helps us dig deeper in market research as we identify student and market needs and analyze how our content meets them.  

Market segmentation data informs our product design, tone and features, as we tailor our content to the needs and demographics of our students.  

Data analytics, usage and student development are also available through the Progress app, included in all MindTap products. Progress gives instructors reports and analytics on student performance, allowing them to identify strengths and focus areas for review and improvement.

For a more detailed discussion of all the Progress features, see this blog post. 

Similarly, Class Insights in WebAssign provides important analytics on student performance. Through Class Insights, instructors who teach with WebAssign can identify problematic topics or individual questions to identify where their students are strongest or where they need the most help.

For more information, you can read the article here. 

Through these analytic tools and apps that are built into Cengage products, instructors can identify what students do or do not know in order to provide personalized remediation. 

Interactivity and personalization

An important component of quality learning is student engagement, and one way to promote engagement is by building interactivity and personalization into our products.  

Videos help students learn by providing a new way of engaging with core content, in addition to reading the book and completing scaffolded activities. Watching media also gives students a dynamic and creative way to learn and practice new content.  

Our Music courses rely on interactivity through their directed listening guides, such as in “Listening to Music“ (Music Appreciation). These activities use short music clips featuring time-stamped notes of specific elements with quiz assessments which challenge students to listen closely to music on their own. The directed listening guides also have visualizations to help students “see” what they hear to promote engagement and retention. 

Cengage STEM courses also incorporate interactivity and personalization. For example, Physics courses have Interactive Video Vignettes, which are online video analysis and interactive tutorials designed to address prior misconceptions and set a contextual foundation. Similarly, Decision Sciences in WebAssign contain Exploring Statistics Activities. These interactive, visual demonstrations give students the opportunity to learn concepts by manipulating a visual tool and answering relevant multiple-choice questions. Accompanying walk-through videos also help students understand the concepts. 

Technology

At the cutting edge of learning science lies technology, with its many uses in education. As Cengage Learning Designers, we have worked with digital teams, market research and product teams to develop adaptive learning and simulations. For example, “Dental Assisting: A Comprehensive Approach” (Dental Assisting) contains simulation activities and branching activities to build real-world applications of critical thinking and decision-making skills.  

Simulive communication activities in Introductory French and Spanish products such as “Atelier“ (Introductory French) allow students to practice having a conversation with a recorded native speaker, building their comprehension and speaking skills in a context that is low-stakes but authentic to today’s digital world.  

Likewise, our electrical courses, including “Electrical Wiring Residential,” include simulation that guide students through a variety of important scenarios of wiring a home. Simulations such as these blend market needs with quality activity design to give students authentic, real-world practice with major course concepts so they are engaged as they learn and apply relevant knowledge to become as ready for their future careers as possible.  

Example: Game Theory in Dev Math Course Packs

In WebAssign, Course Packs are sets of prebuilt assignments that can be assigned as-is or customized to fit a course. The Scaffolded Course Pack strategy is based on the kishotenketsu four-act structure used in Chinese, Japanese and Korean literature, as well as video game level design. Our Developmental Math Course Pack assignments have adapted and applied this 4-act design strategy, leading to skill development through a steady lessening of scaffolding and subtle increase in complexity as a learner works through an assignment. The four steps and their interpretations in our products are: 

1) Introduce: (the setup of the story) conceptual questions with help resources, either in the form of Watch It videos or Master It tutorials. This step introduces learners to each learning objective of the homework assignment. 

2) Develop: (give readers a broader understanding of the situation) activities that begin working on conceptual questions and combine learning objectives. They include various question types, especially for more complex problems.  

3) Twist: (an unexpected twist or climax in the story) scaffolded activities that introduce applications. We also include base questions from the first two steps, except this time they appear with fewer help resources. Application questions contain help, but the help resources peter out to promote more individual, complex work. 

4) Conclude: (wrap everything up) skill-and-drill and applications using the knowledge learners gained previously in the lesson. This can also include Responsive Questions (RQs), as they provide an application that has a deeper connection to the learner. 

As a learner works through their scaffolded assignment, they gain a deeper understanding by working from abstract to more concrete uses of each assignment’s learning objectives while staying in a flow state in terms of difficulty. This shows how, by having learning science guide our content reviews and revisions, we strive to create products that are authentic, innovative, engaging and personalized – all components of quality materials that support effective learning and teaching.  

 

Written by Jarmila Sawicka, Learning Designer at Cengage with contributions by Powell Vacha, Learning Designer at Cengage.

 

Learning design and learning science series

This marks the third and final article in our learning design series. Here, we’ve explored the distinctions between learning design and learning science and shared insights into our learning science-defined process. Want to learn more about learning design at Cengage, including our approaches? Be sure to check out parts 1 and 2 of the series.

Part 1: Defining Quality Learning at Cengage

Part 2: Approaches to Learning Design at Cengage