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

11.8. Transition from Examples to Practice Gradually

Completing practice exercises imposes a great deal of mental load. In Chapter 10, we showed evidence that using healthy doses of worked examples along with practice will result in more efficient learning. In fact, a proven strategy to impose load gradually as learners gain expertise is to use faded worked examples. Because we discussed the evidence for faded worked examples extensively in Chapter 10, we provide only a brief review here.

11.8.1. An Example of Faded Worked Examples

In our database lesson on the CD, after presenting several basic concepts, the lesson guides the learners to apply five database design steps. The first example is a full worked example in which all of the steps ...