ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three specific techniques that can be used to encourage elaboration. First, elaborative interrogation involves students asking "how" and "why" questions about the concepts they are studying, and then trying to answer these questions. Second, concrete examples can provide several advantages to the learning process: they can concisely convey information, they can provide students with more concrete information that is easier to remember, and they can take advantage of the superior memorability of pictures relative to words. Finally, dual coding theory suggests that providing both verbal and pictorial representations of the same information enhances learning and memory. One interesting application of the self-explanation method is the prepare-to-teach method; where you end up learning the material really well because you have to get good enough to be able to teach it to someone else. The idea of dual coding often appears as multimedia learning, because here the material is represented in multiple forms.
