Cognitve load theory

For our next lesson for pedagogies for flexible learning, that is this afternoon, we have to write something about a specific pedagogy. I was really ashamed because the first question that came to mind was: ‘what is a pedagogy?’. This is something that after following the bachelor for 3 years I should know by heart. I think it has to do with the fact that the whole bachelor was in Dutch so its really just a problem of translation (I hope). After a lot of thinking an searching I chose an article by Sweller named: cognitive load theory, learning difficulty and instructional design. As you can guess this article is about the cognitive load theory.

I had to read the abstract a couple of times to really get what the article is about but eventually I got it. The article describes how the cognitive load works. The cognitive load theory refers to the  load on the working memory during instruction. By making schema’s we can make the cognitive load less. A schema is a cognitive construct that  organizes the elements of information in a manner in which they can be dealt with. In the article a distinction is made  between intrinsic cognitive load and artificially manipulating  learning to improve the cognitive load (extrinsic cognitive load). With intrinsic cognitive load the author refers to the inherent difficulty that very instruction. It argues that the intrinsic cognitive load is higher when a schema has to be learned simultaneous as to when it can be learned successively You can not change the intrinsic cognitive load but you can influence  the extraneous cognitive load. It is argued that the makers of instruction must always take into consideration how high the cognitive load is when they are designing instruction.

I think this is an interesting article because at least for me the effect that are argued in this theory are very clear. When I am sitting in a classroom and the teacher is explaining something in that hour I lose my focus after a while. I am unable to concentrate and my mind feels full. I have this feeling in most classes I take and I think it is a shame. I really want to pay attention and I am sure that what the teacher is saying is really interesting but I just can not follow it. I think I have a smaller cognitive load than my fellow students because they seem to able to pay attention through the whole lesson (or are better at disguising their inattention better than me :P). So for me the cognitive load theory is really something that should be remembered when designing any form of lesson.

IF you want to read the article go to : http://dtserv2.compsy.uni-jena.de/ws2009/instrpsy_ue/33071632/content.nsf/Pages/0F1E155FF4258ABEC1257665004B4902/$FILE/Sweller_1994.pdf

The reference is:

Sweller, J. (1994). Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design.. Learn.

Instruction. 4, 295-312.