Balancing the cognitive load: How much is too much?
Have you ever felt “information overload” when presented with a new topic that you are purposely trying to learn? Does this feeling come with a great deal of frustration, as you reflect on other topics that you have learned and retained more easily? Is it, maybe, that you don’t feel a particular affinity with the subject, or the content is not sequenced and presented properly? Maybe both? How frequently do we hear from our learners who, undoubtedly, also experience this with our course?
We all struggle with this feeling and the subsequent questions at some point. The explanation is one of a more scientific nature and has to be with the cognitive load. The most widely accepted theory, the Atkinson–Shiffrin model (1968), explains that we process information using three mechanisms:
- A sensory register, or our senses. The way we perceive the world and capture information.
- A short-term memory, which receives and holds information that comes from the sensory register and the long-term memory.
- A long-term memory, where information received from the short-term memory is received, held indefinitely, and organized in schemas for retrieval when prompted.
While long-term memory is assumed to be limitless, short-term memory is finite and short-lived. We can only deal with a limited amount of information, or cognitive load, at a time before we start losing it, and it gets worse if the content is not presented in a well-organized manner that would facilitate the transfer to the long-term memory. At some point, we all may default to the quintessential cognitive offloading strategy: we take notes to organize our thoughts and help to remember the information.
This phenomenon is inherently human and seems to be present in biologically secondary knowledge acquisition processes that we pursue voluntarily and that require considerable effort to attain. If we stop to think about this and let it sink, we are talking about mostly everything that we learn outside general problem-solving strategies, communication, and social relations. This includes, precisely, higher education!
Watch it Now
Juan Mavo-Navarro shares strategies on how to help your learners balance their cognitive load.
As educators, the best service we can give our learners is to work on a content organization approach that respects the limits of the short-term memory and balances the cognitive load. Some strategies that we can put into practice are:
- Organize content into small clusters or “chunks.” It’s easier for learners to watch a 5-minute video about a sub-topic than a 30-minute lecture of the entire lesson! It will also help them plan their time to work on these bits efficiently and satisfactory.
- Allow learners to “borrow” from your own long-term memory. Reflect upon your learning journey about a topic, and build a storytelling piece (e.g., a case study) to explain how you learned it. This doesn’t mean that your learners will use the same schema that you used, but will give them a starting point to reorganize this knowledge and build their own.
- Combine novel information with examples on how to use it. New information can easily compromise the effectiveness of the transfer to the long-term memory, therefore limiting the exposure to it within a time frame is critical. Instead of “dumping” an endless number of resources, work on the minimum required to achieve the learning outcomes and provide examples of how to use this new knowledge to help learners create schemas in their long-term memory.
- Use a “solved problem” approach. All adults are problem solvers, which is a biologically primary skill that doesn’t need to be learned. However, attempting to use new knowledge to solve a problem in a very specific domain (e.g., algebra, accounting, chemistry) imposes an increased cognitive load that may compromise learning. A potential solution is to use solved problems to illustrate the heuristics that will help learners solve new problems on their own.
By recognizing that we all struggle with cognitive overload at some point in our lives, it’s easier to empathize with learners and their learning journey in a subject matter that you have mastered during your professional career. Take your time to reflect upon these strategies, borrow some of them to help your learners balance their cognitive load, and improve the learning experience for everyone.
Throughout the past 20 years, Juan has honed his expertise and passion for learning through a breadth of public and private sector positions in Learning Design. Drawing on his experience as an instructional designer, trainer, lecturer, and university professor, Juan has developed a holistic approach to engagement in teaching and learning, which he applies in his professional practice. He designs and develops interactive education programs and works closely with instructors and trainers throughout the course lifecycle – from content development to facilitation techniques and strategies – for online, remote delivery, and in-class instruction.
Juan has talked about his experience in conferences sponsored by prestigious organizations like the Association for Talent Development (ATD), the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), and the Canadian Association for University Continuing Education (CAUCE). He has also worked with private corporations, educational institutions, and professional associations to help them achieve their goals.