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Instructional Techniques to Help Novices by Changing Cognitive Load Impositions
I gather that this series of posts on cognitive load is been perceived as too wonky, judging by the lack of comments, and this is the last one in the series. But I just want to point out that the vampire of child-centred learning is still very much undead, and it's critically important to keep waving the garlic at it.
"To help a novice focus and learn it is essential to constrain the level of information that needs to be processed through working memory. This idea becomes one of the basic notions underpinning applications of load theory. Novices need to concentrate as deeply as they can on specific ideas without encumbrance from other sources....
"The finding that pre-instructional experience is valluable for novices is an important finding. That is why 'flip teaching' can be successful, where students are exposed to the big ideas, the vocabulary, and worked examples such that they can begin to form a higher order idea of the things they will need to learn - prior to learning actual details and more specific information needed for mastery. For example, students may watch a video from the Khan academy, see how something works, listen to the whole piece of music, read a chapter in the text book, play around with the tools, and so on, before going into more specific aspects....
"Among the findings that have emerged repeatedly in the cognitive load research is that problem solving is unlikely to be an effective method to employ if you are attempting to teach a knowledge schema. You need to know the ideas well before you start to relate them or use them in a problem solving situation. Problem solving activities impose heavy load and can become a source of interference....The cognitive load theory research has fixed upon the value of worked examples in a number of different fields as one effective and easy-to-apply means of providing necessary guidance to beginners....Worked examples provide a form of modelling through demonstrations of successful procedures or products....Those students asked to consolidate their learning through studying worked examples or completing partially worked examples, are more successful on later tests than students who spent the same amount of time working on unguided problem-solving activities . These effects are especially strong for novices, but as skill level increases and deep knowledge is acquired, worked examples become far less effective as they become unnecessary....
"A recent study...suggests that problem solving may become an effective teaching tool when capable students work together in well-motivated collaborative groups, rather than individually....The explanation for this lies in the possibilitiy that when a small group is working efficiently, its members are able to contain cognitive load through sharing the working memory functions across group members....
"It has been established through a steady stream of cognitive load theory studies that aids to learning will include (a) many signals or cues as to what to pay attention to, (b) a careful depiction and selection of the crucial words that are being used, and (c) any provisions that can reduce dependence upon memory during the initial acquisition process (e.g., such as not having to hold different sources of information in the working memory for longer than a few seconds."
The bottom line is that teachers can improve student learning dramatically by applying the principles of learning described in the cognitive load research literature, but of course teachers who have never heard of it are groping in the dark (as are their students, unfortunately).
Here resteth the gospel of St. John.
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