Multimodal Learning

Environment Project

By: Hannah Choi

The Underground Railroad: Escape

from SlaveryThe Underground Railraod: Escape from Slavery is a multimodal learning environment (MmLE) that was designed to teach students about slaves during the late 1800s on their journey to freedom. The MmLE is divided into 4 sections: On the Plantation, Escape,

Reaching Safety, and Reaching Freedom. Each section has a passage and buttons that open up to an informational section, slideshow, or a small tab

of facts.

New York State Learning Standards for Social Studies

Standard 1:  History of the United States and New York 

Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate

 their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, 

and turning points in the history of the United States and New York.

MmLE URL

The Underground Railroad: Escape from Slavery

Moreno & Mayer’s Interactive Multimodal Learning Environments

Moreno and Mayer described five principles for the design of interactive multimodal learning

environments in their article; two out of the five are contained in this MmLE. This MmLE had features that were connected to the guided

activity principle and pacing principle.

Moreno & Mayer’s Guided Activity Principle

The Guided Activity Principle allows students to “interact with a pedagogical agent who helps guide

their cognitive processing” and “encourages essential and generative processing by prompting students to engage in the selection, organization, and integration of new information.” (Moreno, R. & Mayer, R., 2007, p. 316) In this MmLE, students are guided through four

stages that slaves endure on their journey to freedom. At these stages, students have the opportunity of

selecting various buttons that reveal different information about the stage.

Moreno & Mayer’s Pacing Principle

The Pacing Principle allows students to “control the pace of presentation of the instructional materials” and “reduces representational holding by allowing students to process

smaller chunks of information in working memory.” (Moreno, R. & Mayer, R., 2007, p. 316) In this MmLE

students can control their pace by using the “continue” button located on the bottom right of the simulation or go

to another stage by clicking on the stage above the picture. This allows students to pause and navigate

through the stage on their own pace. Students also have the option of clicking on the headphone button, which

reads the information out loud.