Richard E. Mayer

But good online learning can be incredibly effective.

Richard Mayer's research into multimedia learning shows that well-designed digital learning can support understanding beautifully.

Short focus lessons, clear visuals, simple explanations, learner control over the pacing, having pause, replay, revisit.

That flexibility can be incredibly powerful.

Two pathways rather than one.

Richard Mayer's cognitive theory of multimedia learning, replicated across dozens of studies, has direct implications for preaching.

People learn and retain information most effectively when verbal and visual channels are coordinated and presented simultaneously.

Mayer's experiments show that information delivered through words alone is retained at ten to fifteen percent after seventy-two hours.

This is an area where the law is finally catching up with cognitive science.

Decades of studies, like Richard Mayer's theory of multimedia learning, have proven that human beings, and therefore juries, retain far more information when words and pictures are combined than when they just listen to someone talking.

Which brings us to the brand-new December 2024 Rule 107 governing illustrative aids.

This is the first entirely new evidence rule since 2008.

Words plus visuals often improve recall better than words alone.

Richard Mayer's multimedia learning research supports this too, because when information is presented well across multiple channels, learning becomes easier and more meaningful.

But here's the really important point.

The most powerful strategy still isn't watching or listening.