Follow us
Learning to Learn - Differently
  • Home
  • What's the Difference?
  • Forward Focused School Leadership
  • L2D2 Open Forum
  • Teaching and Learning
  • Resource Bank

What's the difference?

Thoughts on making a real difference in the lives of learners...

View all Blog Entries

Balancing your Cognitive Load

11/20/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Working memory is a balancing act. We all juggle pieces of information to solve problems, understand different situations and acquire new knowledge. The amount that we are able to retain and manipulate in our short term working memories is called our cognitive load. The average person can only retain about seven chunks of new information at a time and can usually manipulate only about half of it. Cognitive load theory uses "knowledge of the human brain to design teaching strategies that will maximize learning" for students. In essence it is really looking at how to optimize to load on individual students' working memories to avoid overload and preventing them from mentally shutting down and failing to learn new concepts.

Simply put, learning takes place when students successfully transfer new information from their working memories into their long-term memories. Once those decks are cleared, their working memories are open to absorbing new knowledge and begin the process over again. Long-term memory is like have a database in your brain. You can draw on any of your stored memories without effecting your ability to add new learnings. It is one of the reasons why learning processes tend to be sequential, as each new piece of information or concept is laid out and applied on the foundation of previously acquired knowledge. In other words, the more that you can draw on your long term memory, the more you can reduce the cognitive load on your working memory and optimize your learning.

Recently, the Centre for Education Statistics and evaluation in New South Wales (Australia) released a study entitled Cognitive Load Theory in Practice: Ideas for the classroom. 
​ It looks at three key steps in the learning process that vary according to the level of knowledge and understanding housed in a student's long term memory - their personal baseline.
The steps are simple and not surprising:
1. When teaching new content to students without much pre-existing knowledge, teachers should provide students with lots of detailed, fully guided instruction;

2. As the students’ knowledge and skill increases, teachers should provide a mix of guided instruction and problem-solving practice; and,
3. Finally, as students become very proficient, teachers should provide minimal guidance and allow students to practise their skills with lots of problem-solving tasks. Some students will progress to independent problem-solving faster than others.
​

The study goes on to outline seven different teaching strategies, with examples, of how to optimize cognitive load and maximize student learning. Two of these strategies in particular resonated with me. The first because it was something that was fundamental to our Universal Design approach; and the second because it provided a great insight as to how we could improve our own practice. 

The study recommends that information be presented both orally and visually at the same time. It notes that our working memories have "two separate ‘channels’ – one for dealing with visual information, and another for dealing with auditory information. By spreading the delivery of information across both of these channels at once, teachers can manage cognitive load and make it easier for students to learn the information." This can be done by communicating information using both images and sound. Typically, our teachers always review the outline of the day verbally while pointing at the visual schedule on the front wall. The two inputs reinforce each other and cement the knowledge more firmly in long-term memory. We call it a visual support.

However, the study also presents a cautionary note. It reminds teachers to limit "inessential information" that might clutter the student's working memory and lead to overload and shut down. By inessential information it means inputs that are either irrelevant to the central learning at hand, or redundant. Specifically, if the identical information is being presented in two different modes it can potentially confuse or overload working memory rather than reinforcing learning. For example, if a teacher puts a long quote up on the SMARTBoard and then proceeds to read it out loud, the two inputs compete for attention in the learner's mind causing confusion and making it more difficult to absorb the learning.
See, I told you that it was a delicate balancing act!


When schools and teachers spend time talking about Executive Function, usually a critical component of their concerns revolve around the need to optimize working memory. Balancing students' cognitive loads in a systematic and deliberate fashion through carefully constructed teaching strategies is a key component in maximizing student learning. This study goes a long way in supporting all schools to move more deliberately down that path.

0 Comments

With IEPs, the Medium is the Message about learning

11/4/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
One fall, before most of the adults in my school were born, I gave up on an undergraduate course in programming at the University of Toronto (involving key punch cards with lines of code and searching reams of paper for error messages). In its place, I transferred into a philosophy half-course taught by Marshall McLuhan. It was a rambling, eclectic mix of communication theory, the impact of hot and cool media, and a critique on how the industrial model of education was designed to stamp out differences in learners in order to make them into conforming members of society as a whole. For McLuhan, classrooms were like a typewritten page with the heading (teacher) at the top and straight lines of words (the students) laid out in neat rows below; schools themselves were little more than assembly lines producing standardized graduates in the same way Henry Ford had churned out Model T's in the 1920s.

More than forty years later, the analogy often still holds true in many of our schools and school systems. They are still primarily built on a mass production, standardization, model. They start with the proscribed curriculum and learners are asked to adapt to it as best they can. Students enter, are delivered a programme designed to meet the learning style of the mainstream, and then exit - more or less successfully - to move on to the next stage in their educational lives. It is an assembly line system, softened only by the professionalism of the people delivering it. Replicated in community after community, it is the McDonalds of education. Now, in fairness, not all schools or even school districts conform to this model. There are lighthouses where flexibility and individual student needs trump the constraints of textbooks and exams. But it takes vision and leadership to break these bonds in a culture that often demands a standardization of approach. These systemic expectations may be driven by rigidly constraining working conditions agreements (think "class size and composition"), by budget priorities, or by public perceptions and political expediencies that are driven by the results on high-stakes tests.

Whatever the reason, what should be a universal design for learning to meet the needs of all learners has been flipped on its head to mean "one size fits all" schooling and equity in educational opportunity, has been replaced by equal access to programmes, but not learning.

We are fortunate as a small, independent option to be free of many of these constraints. By contrast, what we try to offer is based on a mass customization model. This is the essence of creating a path to inclusion through applying the principles of Universal Design for Learning. Although the wide variety of structures, supports, teaching/learning approaches etc. are accessible to all learners, there is no question but that at the end of the day we are delivering individual programmes for each and every student. Our slogan could maybe be taken not from McDonalds, but from Burger King - you know - "Have it your way!" It is our on-going mission to differentiate the learning experience for each individual child and young adult and to help them to find their personal pathways to success.

Last week our staff sent home IEPs for parent information, reflection and feedback. It is critically important for us to ensure that the pathway and priorities for each individual student be laid out and her or his progress tracked and reported on throughout the school year. The macro principle of UDL is "what is necessary for one is good for all", but the micro principle of "meeting each child's needs within the larger context of the group plan" is even more important to ensuring student success. 
When you apply the principles and best practices of Universal Design to create a welcoming and varied learning environment for everyone, the fine tuning for each individual student becomes just that much easier!





0 Comments
    Picture

    Author

    Dr. Jim Christopher is recently retired Head of Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School and Maplewood Alternative High School in North Vancouver. A parent, author and long-time teacher, and educational administrator across Canada, he has been actively involved in the drive to differentiate learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    September 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012

    Categories

    All
    Education
    Homework
    Independent Schools
    Learning Disabilities

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.