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