Cognitive Load Theory: Lessons Learned

At a recent retreat with the Curriculum and Instructional Design group at CDL, we were put into four small groups for a team building exercise. The goal of the exercise was to develop a timeline for our escape from a crumbling island.

The basic premise was that a remote island we had lived on for some time was disintegrating as we stood on it, and it would be completely gone in 3 months. We had unlimited resources, money, and expertise at our disposal.

In about 30 minutes, my group developed a timeline that described a series of steps for the creation, build and testing of a boat that we would then produce, en masse, to hold and safely transport our general population (assumed and hypothetical) to safety. Not knowing how long we would be at sea, we made sure to leave time for lots (and lots) of testing, both during and after the actual build of the boats. We decided to develop and design our plan in days, rather than months or weeks.

After returning from working in our small groups, the larger team reconvened to share their timelines and then take a vote as to which was best. My group lost, abysmally. It was discouraging, after assuming that our plan was superior because it was the only plan presented that not only left time for the selection of a boat prototype, but also enough time to test, and re-test, allowing retrofits and all sorts of improvements to take place before our island disappeared.

What I learned from the feedback after the vote was that our plan HAD been the best, in that it was thoughtful, thorough, and detailed, but no one picked it because... it was so thoughtful, thorough, and detailed. Confused? I was, too.

We had a discussion about the role of Cognitive Load Theory in this exercise. Cognitive Load Theory is based on the premise that our long-term memory is limited in terms of the amount of information it can hold, and that has a direct impact on our working memory, or, our ability to learn effectively.
This relationship between long-term memory and working memory is a key part of our cognitive ability. So the learner, in this case, my colleagues, can only take on and retain a certain amount of new information at a time (intrinsic load). When that information is more complex - like the varied and many details we presented in a really short period of time -  less of it can be processed and retained.

So, from an instructional design point of view, our group's timeline held too much (extraneous) cognitive load for those in our audience. The fact that our plan was so detailed was its very failure: It was too complex and too compressed to be meaningful to our audience (germane cognition). Our audience lost track of what we were saying,  then they lost  interest,  and then they voted it down. Ours was a good plan with poor presentation.

This is common pitfall for instructional designers, who, however skilled and well-meaning, can try and fail at conveying information in an effective way when they forget the basic premise of cognitive theories like this one. Every learner is different, but the human brain has been shown to be fairly consistent in terms of its capabilities in this context.  Memory and meaningful learning have a direct relationship (with each other, and our role is to understand that relationship and enhance it (Ayres, 2006).

References:
Ayres, P. (2006). UNSW, 2006. Cognitive load theory at UNSW. Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales (UNSW).


Chipperfield, B. (2006). Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Design Saskatoon. Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Saskatchewan (USASK)

Open Education: Lessons Learned

I enrolled in David Wiley's Introduction to Open Education course this spring, and all my impressions and work have been captured here, on a blog I created for Open Education issues, courses, and projects: http://openeducation-cmiller.blogspot.com/.

A small group of professionals from CDL enrolled in the course at the same time, and we met bi-weekly to stay connected and keep each other apprised of our work.  The same group decided to present on our experiences in the course. We shared impressions and observations at the Annual CDL Conference, and several members of the same group went on to present at SUNY CIT.

One of the most enjoyable things I worked on as part of the presentation was an adaptation of Wiley's "Licensing Game." You can see my version of the game here.

The Moodle Wiki: A How-To Guide

CDL will be moving from one LMS to another in the coming months, and as we approach the conversion we all have a lot at stake. Many of us have worked in ANGEL for our entire careers, and many more of us have never worked in Moodle. It came to me that maybe if we divided up the work involved with learning a platform and all it has to offer, we might feel a little less overwhelmed by the prospect.

Each member of the group has been assigned to one feature or tool in Moodle, and after we figure out how it works and what it does, we each present to the group on it. This way, no one person feels the burden of having to learn everything. I was asked to study and report on the wiki feature in Moodle, along with the Groups function.

Here's what I put together:

The Moodle Wiki: A How-To Guide

Groups in Moodle: A How-To Guide

Interactive Course Catalog for Business Studies in Human Resource Management

This easy-to-use, interactive resource provides teaching and mentoring faculty with tools and ideas when advising students who may be interested in taking a specific human resource management study and want to know more about what may be covered. This interactive course catalog will help in the development of independent studies and/or specific HR competency degree plans.

Interactive Slideshow for Politics & Religion Course

Religion remains a powerful force in American political life, despite perspectives that the US is becoming more secular. This Humanities course examines the relationship between religion and politics from a variety of social and philosophical perspectives while establishing a historical framework within which to assess the role of religion in contemporary politics. The slideshow shown here relies on interactive media to provide a visually-rich approach to the subject matter while giving students freedom to explore a variety of resources and topics at their own pace. While browsing the digital photos and portraits of historic and contemporary political figures, students can read notable quotes and follow links to biographical information.

Labor Studies: Informational Learning Resources

The Labor Studies faculty at the School for Graduate Studies came to me requesting a website for their department. Using the Commons Platform (Wordpress) I created their site and included things like course offerings and descriptions, some sample material, websites for more information, programs of study, and faculty. The site can be viewed at: http://commons.esc.edu/laborstudies/

Google Docs & Asynchronous Class Collaboration

In the Women in Business course at CDL, students use a shared document to compile data related to their research on female CEOs from around the world. Each student is asked to provide authentic biographical data for a female CEO in business today, and to add it to a shared form in Google Docs in preparation for a class discussion and later in the course, a research paper.

The data each student enters on the Google Doc serves as an abbreviated research paper thesis, and because other students can view the entries of their peers, they not only learn a bit about other CEOs they may not have chosen themselves, but they also learn to recognize a growing number of influential businesswomen in today's market. The Google doc provides a real-time save/edit feature that provides students with the most current, up-to-date information recently added to the form by their peers or the instructor. It is important to note that students do not need gmail accounts to participate; the document is set up to allow anyone with the link to view and add data. Because the Google Suite (Apps, Docs, Mail) doesn't yet communicate with certain screen reader technology, students with visual impairments have the option to contact the instructor and receive a downloaded version of the document that they can add their data to and resubmit.