up:: Content
author:: Terrell Heick
full title:: What Is the Cognitive Load Theory? A Definition for Teachers
url: Link
Highlights
- Cognitive Load Theory is a theory about learning built on the premise that since the brain can only do so many things at once, we should be intentional about what we ask it to do. (View Highlight)
- developed in 1998 by psychologist John Swelle (View Highlight)
- Cognitive Load Theory says that because short-term memory is limited, learning experiences should be designed to reduce working memory ‘load’ in order to promote schema acquisition. (View Highlight)
- Note: knowing this, how does this impact how we go about our daily lives?
- For example, if you asked a student to critically examine various economic systems (higher-order thinking) while also defining and ‘making sense of’ what an ‘economic system’ was and how they worked, you’d be overloading short-term memory. Because the student doesn’t yet ‘understand’ economic systems, they would need to consistently access their short-term memory while processing–while ‘learning.’ The concept of ‘economic systems’ is not yet in their long-term memory, so as they ‘create knowledge’ (moving new ‘information’ into existing or emerging schema), their short-term memory becomes cluttered because it is the primary ‘ground zero’ for the learning. (View Highlight)
- Note: example of cognitive (over)load
- working memory load should be reduced and schema construction encouraged (View Highlight)
- Note: this reminds me of a cognitive load lecture with Professor Varma about how many elements we can have in our working memory
- Cognitive Load Theory also suggests that ‘knowing things’ is necessary to think critically about those things–or at least is most efficient when that is the case. (View Highlight)
- primary information processing ‘activities’ here (knowledge acquisition and problem-solving) should be considered separately, oftentimes focusing first on schema, then on problem-solving with and through that schema. (View Highlight)