Managing Cognitive Load in the Classroom
Written by Isabella Abigail Ow
Preface: I am a Secondary school English teacher. What I write about often pertains more to what happens in my own classroom. Some of the practices may not be applicable to teachers teaching other subjects.
Introduction to Cognitive Load Theory (CLT)
John Sweller developed the Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) in the 1980s. I have recently completed reading Oliver Lovell’s book, “Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory in Action” (2020), which is very helpful too for outlining the principles which undergird this theory, and how teachers could be mindful and make appropriate adjustments in their classrooms. Recently too, a colleague who had come in to observe a lesson of mine asked me how I would consciously manage the cognitive load of my students. These various components coming together naturally make me want to reflect on how teachers could and should better manage students’ cognitive load in the classroom.
Cognitive load is the “used amount of working memory resources”. (Wikipedia) In CLT, 2 kinds of cognitive loads are important, intrinsic and extrinsic cognitive loads respectively:
1. Intrinsic cognitive load refers to the “inherent level of difficulty associated with a specific instructional topic.”
2. Extrinsic cognitive load is “generated by the manner in which information is presented to learners and is under the control of instructional designers.” (Sweller, early 1990s)
CLT is designed to do 2 things:
1. Reduce extraneous [extrinsic] load (unnecessary things) on working memory.
2. Optimise intrinsic load (necessary things) on working memory.
Source: Wolseya Academy, “Cognitive Load Theory by Oliver Lovell”.
There are very practical solutions offered by Lovell, both from his 2020 book and in the blogpost summary linked above, to reduce extraneous load for students. These are namely but not limited to:
1. Intrinsic cognitive load can be reduced by breaking up a task into bite-sized chunks.
2. Pre-teach vocabulary, characters, timelines and skills
3. Build skills up in a hierarchy and make use of more “skill-specific” assessments
4. Intentional sequencing of curriculum. Teachers could consider employing “forward-chaining”, which is teaching the elements one at a time, or “snowballing”, which is building skills and/or knowledge one layer at a time.
How does this apply in my classroom?
I find this theory illuminating in many ways. First off, it connects to what I had earlier been reflecting about the need for teachers to be very deliberate about sequencing within the curriculum and of learning activities.
Personally too, I have had feedback about the balance of visual and verbal modes in my classes and/or workshops. When I facilitate discussions, I do improvise and may not always be quick enough to capture important discussion and learning points on my iPad (which is projected onto a screen) or the whiteboard. What remains on the projector screen could be a prose text, a student response in the form of a photograph, a padlet or Classpoint entry. My point is that I might not be efficiently annotating “live” points from the discussion. I could also be making the process of retention harder for my students by responding with teacher feedback immediately, rather than facilitating more “cross-discussion and commenting” between students. What some or most students might need could be verbal repetition or paraphrasing of a discussion point by a student or the teacher, and the annotation of this onto a visual medium. A way to reduce extrinsic load would be to focus students’ attention through converging different sources of verbal stimulus onto a central visual medium.
There is usually an expectation for students to take notes in the classroom. There has been research that writing does help with remembering and retaining information. As there could be some students who are very diligent in taking copious amounts of notes, it would be beneficial and helpful for the teacher to provide very clear and explicit instructions on which notes are essential to take down. The teacher could also send some notes to students before the lesson or send some notes from the lesson to students after the class. As they become less burdened with taking down copious amounts of notes, they are freed up to listen more attentively and participate more keenly during lessons.
- Intrinsic cognitive load can be reduced by breaking up a task into bite-sized chunks.
I think is pretty self-explanatory, but the preparation before lessons to determine what the various sub-tasks in a bigger task is, how I could pace the different sub-tasks for the students and which I would prioritise if I run out of time, is a discipline I would like to enact and commit to more frequently. I think this form of preparation before the lessons would make a world of difference to the lessons themselves.
2. Pre-teach vocabulary, characters, timelines and skills
For English, pre-teaching vocabulary could mean a deeper and richer discussion of prose texts in a later lesson, as students would not be stumbled by words they do not understand. They can focus on analysing themes, thematic insights and writing strategies.
3. Build skills up in a hierarchy and make use of more “skill-specific” assessments
Again, the preparation before lessons to clarify what the differing levels of skills in the learning activities might be, even how I intend to differentiate and focus on different skills with different groups of students or classes and to determine which level in the Bloom’s Taxonomy the learning task pertains to, is a discipline which if I commit to more frequently, could lead to more effective lessons.
Bloom’s taxonomy is a classification system used to define and distinguish different levels of human cognition — i.e., thinking, learning, and understanding. Educators have typically used Bloom’s taxonomy to inform or guide the development of assessments (tests and other evaluations of student learning), curriculum (units, lessons, projects, and other learning activities), and instructional methods such as questioning strategies. (Source: “The Glossary of Education Reform”)
4. Intentional sequencing of curriculum. Teachers could consider employing “forward-chaining”, which is teaching the elements one at a time, or “snowballing”, which is building skills and/or knowledge one layer at a time.
This is a wider practical application. Forward-chaining and snowballing could take place during one or a span and sequence of lessons. When students are taught skills and domain knowledge in the right sequence and doses, their learning progresses more smoothly and could even be exponential. Taking the time to plan and readjust sequencing across lessons or in yearly reviews could enable teachers, unit and curriculum planners to find a sweet spot. Once a sweet spot is found, this could be emulated in the following years unless there is a need to make adjustments again.
I think what CLT does is to enlighten teachers on how students learn and how teachers could make students’ learning more effective and conducive through good instructional design. Thinking about cognitive load places teachers in the shoes of students, which is usually the right and a good point to design better lessons for them.
