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Coherence Principle

By eliminating extraneous material both words and visual and auditory, students will focus on the material that is to be learned. Memory does not have to compete with material that is irrelevant to the topic being addresses. By following this principle, learners will be better equipped to concentrate on the lessons. In most cases, your audience will consist of learners that have a hard time with focusing and following along. There are more and more adults today that are being diagnosed with focusing issues, and students that have focusing issues that are chosing to cope with it rather than medicate. Elimitating extraneous material will help those in the audience stay with the presentation with minimal distractions.

When designing multimedia presentations, the presenter should only present media that is relevant to the work. Other words, symbols, music, sounds, and pictures interfere with working memory especially when it pertains to students who have a low working memory. Presentations should be kept short. Many times there are presentations where the presenter simply reads the presentation word for word. This can be a distraction to the audience as well as an annoyance.

The critical thinking of the participants can be increased by making the content itself interesting. Instead of relying on the instructor providing the students with information, students should be encourages to explore on their own and devlop their own thinking on the subject matter.

Here is are two examples of the Coherence Principle not being utilized: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL4hICyMLKU

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The first video on equivalent fractions on has background music that can be distracting to the learner. Furthermore, it also features a cartoon that explains equivalent fractions but the underlying story can also take away viewer interest from the topic on hand.

The second is actually a link to screen shots where there are many violations of the coherence principle. Mostly overcrowding and too much images on the screen.