e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning

3.3. Some Ways to Use Graphics to Promote Learning

Helping you determine how to create the best types of graphics to meet your instructional goals requires a book topic in itself. In fact, just such a book is Graphics for Learning by Ruth Colvin Clark and Chopeta Lyons. Here we offer just a few examples of the ways to use graphics that serve instructional rather than decorative roles: to teach content types, as topic organizers, and as lesson interfaces.

3.3.1. Graphics to Teach Content Types

Clark (2007) has identified five different kinds of content: fact, concept, process, procedure, and principle. Table 3.2 briefly describes each content type and lists graphic types commonly used to teach specific lesson content such as facts, concepts, ...