CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

Although learning with others would have, perhaps, made Dan’s learning experience more thorough, allowing him to observe and engage in the necessary skills, his self-directed approach proved successful. Dan became confident as he regulated his learning experience, and even in moments of irritation, he re-directed himself--his motivation never faltering. From the beginning, therefore, self-direction, self-regulation, and motivation were key factors in his learning. These attributes are what allowed him to engage in learning principles like segmenting and redundancy without feeling defeated or nervous. His confidence also allowed him to focus on the process while keeping the outcome at the forefront of his mind: he knew what he wanted to achieve, and he would work on his process until he achieved it. 

Recommendations

1. Reducing extraneous materials, and extraneous processing, as Mayer’s (2017) suggests, would ensure that Dan has an optimum learning environment. The television flashing football, the kids playing nearby, and his phone ringing all worked to distract from the task at hand, even though he ultimately had a successful learning experience. In addition to the noise and visual extraneous materials, clearing the counter completely, as he admitted, would provide a reduction of extraneous materials. 

2. It took Dan awhile to realize that a video (which captured both emotional design and embodiment principles that Mayer (2017) discusses); therefore, gathering his sources ahead of time would be useful. Using multimedia from the beginning, not just text, would have reduced the irritation he experienced and made his learning experience more fluid. 

3. Dan talked about having a lack of prior knowledge about baking, and yet, having prior knowledge from informally and often subconsciously observing me throughout the years. Observation, I believe, would be a valuable tool for learning how to bake moving forward. Making use of the social cognitive theory Merriam & Bierema, 2013) would allow him to see what it is that he will be doing, even before he does it himself.