William Winn

William David "Bill" Winn (d. 2006) was an educational psychologist who made notable contributions to the understanding of how people learn from diagrams, and on how cognitive and constructivist theories of learning can help instructional designers select effective teaching strategies.

His areas of teaching and research included instructional theory, design of computer-based learning, instructional effects of illustrations, theories of visual perception applied to instructional materials design, computer interfaces, and the roles and effectiveness of virtual environments in education and training. This work extended cognitive theories of learning into systems dynamics models of cognition and cognitive neuroscience.

Winn was a professor at the University of Washington College of Education where he held appointments in curriculum and instruction, and cognitive studies. He was also director of the Learning Center at the Human Interface Technology Lab (HITLab), and adjunct professor in the College of Engineering, and the Music department.

Career path

Specializing first in French and German languages and comparative literature, Winn earned a BA and MA from Oxford University and an MA from Indiana University. He earned a PhD from Indiana University (1972) in Instructional Systems Technology (minor educational psychology) for research on instructional message design. His doctoral dissertation was on the "Similarity of Hierarchically Organized Pairs of Pictures and Words as Reported by Field-Dependent and Field-Independent High-School Seniors".

From 1972 to 1974, Winn was an assistant professor in the Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, at the University of Sherbrooke. From 1974 to 1985, he was the academic coordinator of the Learning Technology Unit at the University of Calgary.

Winn was the editor of "Educational Communication and Technology Journal", and served on the editorial review boards of many other journals in the fields of educational psychology and educational technology.

Winn collaborated broadly across disciplines and national boundaries, presenting papers in French, German and English. In addition to teaching, extensive graduate advising activities, and a prolific writing schedule, at the time of his death he was working on research with the Puget Sound Marine Environment Modeling Group, Augmented reality and physical models of complex organic molecules, INFACT/PixelMath, and collaborating with PRISM and the Center for Environmental Visualization.

ee also

* HITLab

External links

* [http://www.hitl.washington.edu/home/ HITLab]
* [http://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/billwinn/ William Winn web page]
* [http://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/person.php?name=billwinn online profile at the HITlab]

References

Winn, W.D. (1987). Charts, graphics and diagrams in educational materials. In D. Willows and H. Houghton (Eds.), "The Psychology of Illustration. Vol. 1. Basic Research". New York: Springer, 152-198.

Winn, W.D. (1990). A theoretical framework for research on learning from graphics. "International Journal of Educational Research, 14", 553-564.

Winn, W.D. (1991). Learning from maps and diagrams. "Educational Psychology Review, 3", 211-247.

Winn, W.D. (1993). An account for how people search for information in diagrams. "Contemporary Educational Psychology, 18", 162-185.

Winn, W.D. (1994). Contributions of perceptual and cognitive processes to the comprehension of graphics. W. Schnotz & R. Kulhavy (Eds.), "Comprehension of Graphics". Amsterdam: Elsevier. 3-27.