Interactive Activities Done Properly: What the Science Actually Allows Us to Do | Learning Development Accelerator
Matt Richter dives deep into the science of how to align activities with the goals for learning and what people need to practice or accomplish.
When a metaphorical game succeeds, it succeeds because it creates structurally similar cognitive demands—not because it is fun, novel, or symbolic.
In other words, the brain doesn’t care about your metaphor. It cares about what it has to think about during the activity.
From a cognitive architecture viewpoint, activities are not designed to “create engagement,” “break up the session,” or “get people talking.” Those may be side benefits, but they are never the goal.
The purpose of an activity is to create conditions where the learner must activate, retrieve, apply, or integrate the target schema.
When aligned to cognitive architecture, interactive activities can beautifully satisfy SDT’s psychological needs:
Autonomy: choosing strategies, making decisions
Competence: clear and informational feedback, achievable challenge
Relatedness: coordinating, negotiating, helping
But motivation is a multiplier, not a substitute
