Maximizing learning potential with multimodality : a case study

Abstract

In today’s increasingly fast-moving digital world, learners are immersed in multimodal online communication environments in their daily life, through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and others. This requires educators to reflect the environment in which these learners live, and thus design instructional practices from a multimodal perspective. Multimodality offers new opportunities for digital learners to express themselves, analyze problems and make meaning in multimodal ways as they interpret knowledge differently according to their various educational needs (Kalantzis & Cope, 2015). In this paper we will discuss the significance of integrating multimodality in e-Learning contexts to make meaning and improve learning. The paper will also present a case study of an online course from the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign to show how multimodality works in practice to cater to learner differences by offering a range of activity options and modes of meaning. We will also examine learners’ perceptions of adopting such an approach in the online course. We used survey techniques for data collection and quantitative and qualitative methods for data analysis. Results revealed illuminating insights about the importance of multimodality approach to increase learning potential for digital learners and provided suggestions for future iterations.