Unburdening the Brain & Shifting the Cognitive Load

There's been A LOT written and talked about recently in regards to "cognitive load"; brain science is showing us more about what does and doesn't work for learning, and the impacts of trauma (like a certain pandemic) and still being felt by our students.

A recent podcast from Truth for Teachers, "Help students do more with less effort using cognitive load theory", explains:

Cognitive load theory includes intrinsic, germane, and extraneous loads. Intrinsic load is the complexity inherent in the content. Instructional designers recognize that most of this load cannot be mitigated. Content load should not be confused with task or assignment load, which are addressed in the next two types.
In germane load, learners are integrating new information into an existing schema. Designers tend to increase this load since it helps ensure learning makes it to long-term memory. Finally, there is extraneous load, which designers seek to eliminate as much as possible. These are the other weights our students carry: distractions (environmental or internal), redundancy of content, and so forth that interfere with deep learning.

(For a more detailed report on what teachers need to know about cognitive load, check this out.) 

What does this mean for us? In short, we want to plan to support the germane load and decrease the extraneous load so that students can spend most of their energy on the intrinsic load. 

What does this look like in class?

If I'm introducing a new competitive review game for some recently taught content, I might not be affecting the intrinsic load because the students should know the content. In fact, frequent, short review games as retrieval practice are good for learning! 

However, by adding a new game and making it competitive, I've potentially increased the extraneous load because of stress AND not taken advantage of the germane load, as students are expending more energy learning something new than perhaps they are on reviewing.

Does this mean we never use a novel approach? Of course not--that would be boring! However, it might mean that I should go with tried and true games FIRST when planning, or that before I use a game like this for content, I introduce it with something fun and low stakes so that students can learn the rules before "it counts." 

In short, the more we rely on routines and solid practices for activating prior knowledge and scaffolding, the more we help our learners focus on learning! 

For more practical tips, this recent Edutopia article also outlines "How to Reduce the Cognitive Load" includes several tips for reducing the extraneous load and supporting the germane load with scaffolds. 

Let us know what stood out for you or what you want to know more about in the comments.