The one thing to take from a learning technologies masters program

As I near the end of my masters of learning technologies program, I’ve wondered ‘if there is one concept/theory/strategy/etc. to take from this program, what would it be?’ Any instructional design/learning technologies program is going to focus on instructional design frameworks (e.g. ADDIE, rapid prototyping), learning theories (e.g. behaviorism, cognitivism), evaluation methods of learning technologies. But, I think I’d have to say that Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning is what I’ve found most useful.

In my current work, I refer to Mayer’s principles on an almost daily basis. You can find more information about each of the twelve principles here. Any instructional designer should at least be familiar with these, and once you are, you’ll see them used (or violated) in nearly any learning material you come across.

There are a number of useful concepts that I’ve gathered from my program, but I’d argue that if nothing else an instructional designer should at least know Mayer’s principles.