Reflection an argument about ‘Media will influence learning’


After reading the Clark and Kozma’s Debate about the resolution “Media will influence Learning’, I am illuminated by both author’s arguments. Clark’s proposition - The media is mere vehicle that deliver instruction, but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in nutrition.” It is true that Learning is influenced more by the content and instructional strategy in a medium than by the type of medium (Wilbur Schramm, 1977). Clark strongly believes that media and their attributes have important influences on the cost or speed of learning, but only the use of adequate instructional methods influence learning. He also indicates that methods as the provision of cognitive processes or strategies that are necessary for learning. He claims that absolutely any necessary teaching method can be delivered to students by many media or a variety of mixtures of media attributes within similar learning results. Regarding this argument, from my experience I agree that, although in the developing countries like India and the underdeveloped countries in Africa where dramatic changes in achievement and ability have followed the introduction of media like television, it was not the media, but rather curricular reform as well as teaching method that accompanied the change. Actually only content of the media can influence achievement. Decades ago, there was no such media was available except charts, photographs or books especially in developing countries like India. It is the Teaching method or strategy that influences learning achievement. I recall my best teacher’s teaching strategy how to involve whole class from low to high cue students and how to impregnate that particular topic in mind for ever. In my view, a teacher is like a painter who only can decide which media is appropriate to paint a particular picture or content depending on the subject and level.
Reading Kozma’s rebuttal that ‘Media does influence learning’, makes me think about present world scenario. In our competitive and fast pace world learning has to be accomplished quicker and better than ever before. It is the computer that is a time saving tool to accomplish 30-50% reduction in time to complete a lesson. In general, information can be displayed, received, stored, retrieved, organized, translated, transferred and evaluated among other processes through media. Thinker tools (White’1993) represent a constructivist model of learning as the environment allows learners to manipulate shapes and see patterns. The adventure of Jasper Woodbury video series facilitates intellectual thinking and problem solving skills. In respect of my personal experience, having media in a science laboratory is definitely beneficial to see the results of their experiments at once and to repeat their experiments and compare results without having to manually construct graphs. In conclusion, media enables labor saving in learning, efficiency for particular students as well as independent learning.

References
Clark, R. E. (1994).Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29
Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19.
Clark, R. E. (1993). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445-459
Kozma, R. B. (1991). Learning with media. Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 179-212