Lighten the load, but not too much! On Cognitive Load

Once in a while, the dots not only join but create a new picture or a new possibility to explore.

After my last blog post on the increasing complexity of 3-dimensional education today, something kept rippling, bubbling up mysteriously from the ether of my subconscious so much at the fringes that it could not be fully grasped, and then...

There is a lot of debate about which of the 21st-century learning design tools guarantees the most progress for students. Which teaching method altar holds the Holy Grail of education? Is it constructivist approaches like inquiry or problem-based learning, or transmission/ direct teaching models? Can a teacher guide students to learn or do they need a more directly instructed foundation to build upon, brick by brick?

What if it's not any of these methods and all of these methods? What if we're too focussed on 'what is best' instead of thinking about 'why it works'?

And then, eventually, it slowly became clear like my windscreen on a chilly morning. No, not THE answer (I wish! I'd save it for my Ph.D. or even a book!). No, even better. THE question became clear.

Isn't it all about which method delivers the most appropriate Cognitive Load?

Cognitive load is my new friend and learning's champion. Working memory is its trusty sidekick, schema and emotions the faithful steeds, and long term memory the destination.

Cognitive load is the level of challenge that the task demands of the learner. Too heavy the cognitive load and working memory becomes over worked and nothing gets retained. Too small the load and the brain skims over the content not even stopping to analyse the content adequately (Kaehnman, D. 2011).

Trouble is, the sweet spot of the cognitive load will vary from learner to learner because no two brains are alike (link here) nor do they process the same information in the same way. Schema and emotions can trot along nicely or wildly depending on how the cognitive load triggers the stress areas of the learner. Add to that the fact that our brains are wired to forget new learning unless we repeat the information at appropriate intervals. Here is the Forgetting Curve (link here):

Source: https://www.inkling.com/blog/2015/08/why-google-changed-the-forgetting-curve/

This graph shows how spaced and interleaving practice can benefit retention (learn more about the research of Professor Robert Bjork on the topic here):

Retrieved from: https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/8377/how-are-these-review-forgetting-curve-calculated

One of the biggest concerns with constructivist approaches to learning is that it can place too much cognitive load by forcing the learner with low levels of the particular schema to struggle for too long (Kirshner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E., 2006). However, in the years that I've taught inquiry, the first step after gathering initial ideas (diagnostic assessment or baseline data for planning) has been to build the knowledge base of the learners before asking them to dive into a more personalised problem-based stage. Learning episodes are carefully structured to challenge learning but also provide scaffolding for finding new information. But this only deals with knowledge as content, and there is so much more to learning than just 'stuff.'

How much teacher input is required for learning to occur depends on what experiences the lesson is designed to create. There is some learning that can only be experienced on a personal level to be meaningful (e.g. the importance of collaborative or reflective skills), and then there is learning that can only be understood when it makes sense in a specific way for a specific purpose (e.g. trigonometry). 

To create a multilevel task by using the most appropriate teaching method and achieve the sweet spot of cognitive load for a group of learners is indeed the challenge. So instead of focussing on which method is best overall by simplifying learning to percentages of successful assessment data, wouldn't it be more use to investigate and assess which method works best for which type of learning situation?

Agency is the new buzz word, and a characteristic that I've always believed creates a passion for life-long learning. For me, learner agency is when a learner can direct their learning intrinsically through an iterative process of action and reflection while sustaining their self-efficacy. Rather than asking which method is best, I prefer to ask how each teaching method can help develop that powerful characteristic of successful learners from the level of cognitive load it creates for each learning episode.


References:

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.
Kirshner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during Instruction doesn’t work. How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education. Retrived from http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf