The world is creating meaning in more complex ways as we continue well into the technology age. With the internet at our fingertips, we can further explore virtually any topic through videos, audio, digital literature, and a plethora of other media, deepening our understanding within moments. Instructors can generate content which leverages a multimodal approach to engage learners and provide access to a broader set of supporting materials and exercises. Not only is this a novel and exciting approach to teaching, it is an essential strategy for inclusive learning. Providing many types of modalities for learning a concept ensures learners of different preferences and capabilities have equitable access to knowledge, and the process of cognitive switching between modalities when exploring new information is helpful in retaining that information. This concept is likened to the medical term synesthesia, a condition in which the affected individual imagines scents when hearing the name of a color, sees color when thinking of numbers, as well as other overlaps in senses coupled with recognition. Students deserve the opportunity to lay out multiple supplements before them to gain a broader picture of a subject, such as documents, pictures, videos, diagrams, and models. In the digital era, it’s now easier than ever for an instructor to provide such an experience for their students, and typically at a lower cost than through traditional, physical resources, such as textbooks, overhead projector sheets, physical video cassettes and discs and the equipment to display them, life-like molds and models, and field trips. Instructors might even build simulation environments which bring the learner as close to a novel experience as possible without leaving the classroom, such as a trip to space or a ride in an river boat along the Amazon. This isn’t to say that traditional resources should disappear; rather, physical and digital modalities should be provided in tandem with the aim to enrich the understanding of the learner.

References:

Cope, B. (2019, January 17). Multimodal Meaning, Part 3B: Multiliteracies and Synesthesia. E-Learning Ecologies MOOC. Video retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/learn/elearning/home/welcome