I was thinking of our work on our respective Design Documents when I read this grad student's blog post in which he informally outlines the chief components of a learning activity designed for a Norwegian secondary school audience. Essentially, the lesson aims to foster cultural competence through film, music, paintings, or film. In reading through it, one part that stands out for me is what could be considered Gagne's first event of instruction, namely, Gaining Attention. In this secondary school lesson plan, he analyzes the learners and considers the central lesson details (cultural and intercultural competence), and opts for a music video from the popular American singer, Jay Z and the the Sri Lankan/British artist M.I.A.
Although, I'm not familiar with the Norwegian secondary school audience, it seems plausible, given the wide reach that both these artists have (e.g., YouTube) coupled with stereotypical teen interests (e.g., rap/pop singers), that this would be an effective way to activate their attention. At the same time, though, Smith & Ragan raise an important cautionary flag on designs such as this. They note that sometimes the attention-activating device can be so powerful that it diverts the students' focus away from the learning objective(s).
A major concern of designers is that they include enough stimulation in this event to draw students' attention to the learning taks, but not so much stimulation that students' attention is directed only towards the attention-directing device and distracted from the learning task. (Instructional Design p. 132)So in this case, will the students' rapt attention with the music encourage them to ignore the words/lyrics he wants them to analyze for achieving the learning objective?
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