Ever wonder why it is more difficult to remember long strings of information than shorter bits? For over 50 years, studies have suggested that our ability to accurately recall information is capped at about seven numbers or items (Miller, 1956) If we break up the information into little packets, or chunks, we are more capable of remembering greater amounts of information (Simon, 1974). For example, remembering a number such as 5138675309 is much easier when broken into chunks, i.e. 513-867-5309. More current research suggest that our limits may be closer to four chunks of information (Cohen, 2001).
When developing courses at CDL, the Curriculum and Instructional Design team strives to organize information to allow learners to easily access the information in a way that enables them to recall it better. Key to our course models, like the Hassenger and the Humanities Model, is organizing information in amounts that are easy to recall. For example, a quick overview to a given chapter or course module can act as a roadmap for students, and serve to reinforce their learning experience throughout.
Implicit within our courses is this type of underlying structure, or template, which encourages course organization into four to seven course modules, or chunks. This makes the content easier to access and recall and can assist or even improve learning. The Humanities course model also offers various modalities of presentation, so the learner can choose which presentation of the material best fits his or her learning style.
The Global Workplace: Its Impact on Employers, Workers, and Their Organizations 
From an introductory Algebra course, an activity based on the mathematics of weight loss encourages students to reflect on the relationships inherent in linear equations. As students gather and evaluate data from a given set, they are also asked to predict future values, observe potential erros, reflect on their results and consider how certain conditions can produce a different (and possibly unexpected) outcome. Students are also asked to synthesize their previous assumptions about the data with their newly acquired knowledge, which ultimately highlights one of the most important applications of mathematics: Creating models of real world processes and events. By asking students to think of mathematical models as general solutions to problems, the models can then be reused to solve any number of problems – even those outside the world of mathematics.
In this course, Geology and the Environment, the final course module offers students a choice of two different types of capstone assignments to complete by the end of the term. Students choose to participate in either the Lifestyle Project, or to write a research paper. The Lifestyle Project requires students to turn in a journal each week, in which they collect and analyze data about their own lifestyles and the impact of their lifestyle choices on the environment. Each student chooses three different categories of behavior in which they are interested in changing their habits: The use of electricity, water, heat or automobiles, food types and consumption rates, waste production, and environmental awareness. Each week, one category is addressed with the goal of reducing environmental impacts through a gradual but definitive change in everyday habits. Each week, the project becomes more rigorous as students the demands of each category increase.
This course, Energy: the Issues and the Science, includes an overview of the physics of energy. A number of animations are created to graphically illustrate some of the scientific concepts of physics, many of which students might feel are abstract. Concrete explanations of potential, kinetic, and rotational energy are provided via graphic animations, with the goal of increasing students’ understanding of each concept and establishing relationships between course concepts. Upon starting each animation, the student hears narration that accompanies the action of the graphic. The animations can be viewed as many times as the student deems necessary.
Discovering Math Across Generations is a course designed to give adults an opportunity to expand mathematical understanding and problem solving capabilities using a learner-centered approach. 