The main purpose of a knowledge dig is to encourage students to dig beneath the surface of the readings and audiobook (and any other relevant learning materials for a specific session). Towards this end digs are formatted like a discussion.
Over a 10 day period you’ll need to submit at least one comment and at least one question based on the learning materials for the upcoming session 2 on cognitive load.
You'll need to make sure to read the previously posted discussion points to see if your question needs to be changed. You’ll also need to keep checking the discussion even if you have already posted a comment and a question: I expect everyone to be up-to-date on the discussion issues when you come to class.
Remember you'll be posting at least one question and one comment (or at least two posts for each person). You can post anytime between January 27th through midnight of February 4th.
In general I'll only be reading your ongoing discussion, but not making comments myself.
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44 comments:
I would like to begin by saying how helpful it was to listen to the Cognitive Load audio book while looking over the Cognitive Load Overview diagram! It was also beneficial to have some prior knowledge going into the readings. I was able to experience everything I was reading about! (i.e. use of diagrams to help with my extraneous cognitive load and auditory/visual for modality effect!) It worked! I feel that with the diagram, audio book, and text I was able to better understand this new concept (to me) of Cognitive Load!
The Leahy, Chandler, & Sweller (2003) article describes how, in Experiment 2 the students who were in the words/diagram only group outperformed those in the words/diagram/audio group in the high element interactivity questions. Could it be that the words/diagram only group had to 'concentrate' more (and be more 'active' learners) to understand the material whereas the words/diagram/audio group took in the material in a more passive way since the material was being 'read' to them? And it was this difference in active vs passive that accounts for the difference in learning outcomes?
Later in the article (p. 414) the authors mention a number of other studies which demonstrated that auditory inclusion in multimedia instruction works. But are there studies that tease out the 'active learning' effects that might be in play here? I would be interested in reading about experiments that perform fMRI's on subjects as part of the learning experiments with the modality and redundancy effects.
Steve
The imagination effect is well known in sports, one example of the effect being used is to help basketball players become better free-throwers (imagine yourself on the free throw line and making 100 baskets in a row...) But moving the imagination effect into the classroom intrigues me. I liked the summation by Leahy and Sweller (2005) articulating the concept that "(c)ontinuing to study material may give the impression that learning has reached asymptote...by encouraging learners to switch to an imagination strategy...a substantial learning boost may occur..."
This article has made me wonder how I might integrate the switch from studying to imagination into my courses - at what point in the learning process does it make sense to incorporate the switch and how do I do it?
The article "Learning and Understanding Science Instructional Material" (Carlson, Chandler, & Sweller, 2003) makes the point that diagrams may be beneficial only under certain conditions (p. 638) citing a study by Levin et al. (1987). The conditions mentioned include "diagrams that clarify complex and abstract concepts or organize events into a logical structure..." I am reminded that it is the use of good visual models that are important. Edward Tufte explains the process of creating good visual models in his "Visual Display of Quantitative Information" (2001).
If I am reading the Carlson et.al. (2003) article correctly, it would make sense that students should be exposed to diagrams as early as possible regardless of the difficulties the material presented. If both diagrams and letters are schemas, then it would be beneficial for students to get early maximum exposure to them, meaning that all instructional material should be presented as both text and diagram regardless of their levels of element interactivity. Then later, increase the amount of diagrams in the instructional materials in order to create more possibilities for students to find and have access to more diagram schemas that are “in accord with [Will] activate previously acquired schemas” (p.637).
Hi Stephen!
Edward Tufte is my hero! I use four of his books in the University-level Stats Classes I teach. Last week we looked at Charles Minard's Napoleon Graph (page 176, in my 1983 copy of Visual Display of Quantitative Information) and I asked my students to think about Minard's creativity in simultaneously representing multiple variables. My students are always amazed to learn that Minard's work was in the 1850's and 1860's - long before computer graphics packages. As part of a final project, my students are supposed to create an original visual display representing multiple variables from their own data.
If haven't already done so, you may want to attend one of Tufte's seminars. He periodically gives classes in the Bay Area, and the one I attended many years ago was terrific.
The URL to Tufte's website is:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses
I have the four books shown on the site- all four are wonderful.
-Raylene
The article by Carlson, Chandler and Sweller, Learning and Understanding Science Instructional Material demonstrates the concept of cognitive load and its effects on learning. Given the limited capacity of working memory and the interrelationship of the 3 different loads, the effectiveness of diagrammatic format vs. text based instruction was assessed. The authors’ summations as they relate to cognitive load theory all make intuitive sense but I wonder how easy it is for teachers to implement these principles in the classroom?
The summations have direct implications on teachers’ knowledge of content and effective planning, as well as the teacher’s comprehensive understanding the learner.
My experience in working with language disabled students whose learning is impacted by deficiencies in working memory has provided practical evidence of the inner workings of cognitive load. Many of our instructional best practices is based on knowing that working memory is deficient in our student population. It comforting to see that our philosophy and work, in designing curricula and teaching methodology, is strongly connected to cognitive load theory.
One example of best practice is the use of anchoring new information onto prior knowledge. Another best practice is diagrammatic representations eases cognitive load for lessons involving high elemental interactivity. Software like Inspiration is directly instructed to teach the writing method. Because we have seen greater student learning when advanced organizers that presented introducing the gestalt of the lesson, I wonder if this can be considered “chunking” a potentially complicated elemental interactivity reducing the 7 elements to 1 big one? Consistent with the authors’ conclusions, I have also found that when instruction of highly complex schemas is chunked, comprehension is greater and retention is further extended.
One other implication for the classroom teacher here is the knowledge of the student’s propensity for learning, both from a cognitive and behavioral perspective. The experiments assume that students know how to self-assess the amount of cognitive load imposed when doing the exercise. This is not always true for students with learning disabilities.
For students with learning disabilities, where one of the goals is to develop high order thinking skills, the strategy of reducing in extraneous load through the 5 different effects and developing scaffolding to enhance focus must be imbedded in any teaching practice.
Upon reflection, I think my students would benefit greatly if I myself, practiced what I preach.
Comments and Questions related to Article: Interactions Among the Imagination, Expertise Reversal, and Element Interactivity Effects – The results from this experiment are consistent with my experience in the classroom of language impaired students. The use of imagination strategy when prior knowledge is established is an effective tool for transferring knowledge into long term memory. I am in need to check my understanding on one point: When the author states that imagination is not just limited the visualizations, did he mean that the strategy of imagination is not just visualization but a combination of verbalization and visualization as a technique to increase comprehension? It would also seem appropriate to say imagination effect can be considered one of the strategies to enhance focus and thus increasing germane load?
I have used comprehension strategies that employ imaging of sentences and paragraphs to build a gestalt image. I used cue words, like what is the subject, what color, sound, etc. to help form the images in my student’s mind in order to create the image for longer memory storage. Prior knowledge plays a key role in imaging and comprehension. I found that pre-teaching vocabulary in context and anchored upon the students’ prior knowledge made imaging easier and more fun.
As I read this article, Bloom’s Taxonomy came to mind and its possible connection to element interactivity. Can one say that when one approaches the application, synthesis, and evaluation stages of the taxonomy, he or she is experiencing high element interactivity? It seems to me that the whole concept of cognitive load, working memory and long term memory has direct implications on a student’s comprehension.
Leahy, Chandler and Sweller, 2003 – This article certainly speaks to how well the first set of concepts and assignments were introduced in this course. The use of technology, multimedia and advanced organizers to maximize the modality effect thereby increasing the rate of knowledge acquisition were effective in addressing my learning style. Admittedly, I hit some level of cognitive overload as the new procedures and elemental interactivities were introduced during the first day of class. However, in terms of meaningful learning, there is relevant, experiential prior knowledge to anchor new learning; there were meaningful materials presented; and I have chosen to place meaning and relevance to the information. I have had to draw on previously formed schemas to internalize the information for this unit. Of course, with practice, automaticity occurs.
From an instructional design perspective, I wonder how teachers of language disabled (LD) students can filter how much is too much multimedia? There seems to be a fine balance between a technology rich instructional practice and multi media over-stimulation? What kinds of learner inventories are available to mitigate the risks of over-stimulation? In addition, because our LD students need direct and explicit instruction, it seems difficult to assess when expertise reversal effect can take place among these LD students.
The incorporation of multimedia in instructional practices is an art as well as a science. To seamlessly integrate technology when introducing new concepts simultaneously engaging the learner (in the words of Randy Pausch, “the head fake”) is mastery in the making.
A comment from Sharon-I came from the business side of the world where 3 words ruled our lives, “Better! Quicker! Cheaper!” I wanted to share a quote from an article by Daniel Robey, Nicole A. Wishart, and Andres G. Rodriguez-Diaz from the 1995 spring issue of 'Accounting, Management and Information Technology', as it shows the business use of metaphors (schemas) and it is something I often used in my background as a former internal consultant who did process work. “Reengineering conceives of organizations as mechanisms that can be redesigned to be more efficient; learning regards organizations as complex living systems with cognitive and behavioral “memories.” Each metaphor provides valuable insights for organizational improvement, although each also contains blind spots and limitations.” This is not accessible by link easily or I would paste it here.
My question for the class discussion & Dr. Mitchell is about when schemas are deficient—such as if a person is learning multiple steps without a ‘bigger picture’ in mind of how they all fit together and a step is lacking perhaps due to poor instructional design. If the learner made it meaningful in the incomplete fashion (with 9 out of 10 steps comprising their own schema) what happens when one is made aware of its missing aspect-- is the schema so ingrained that it is hard to overcome and has to be relearned as a 10 step schema? Or are these schemas rather ‘plastic’ and can be adapted to quite readily for the learner to again make meaningful in a correct way?
Raylene- Glad to hear that you, too, use Tufte. I periodically receive emails about his seminars but haven't attended one yet. Sounds like I should!
Jozsef- I agree with you that we should be presenting diagrams early for students so that they may create schema to help them later in school and life.
Jude-
You mentioned cognitive overload during the first class. Taking Cog Psych in my fourth year is definitely different than if I were a first year student. Many of the topics and ideas have been covered in other classes and I find that it is far easier to process the information because I have items such as 'cognitive load theory' already in long-term memory. I know what a chore it is to slog through article after article when the material is new - and I have to either create a new schema or integrate it into an existing one.
Hi Sharon,
It is a great question. I did some background work and I think both attribution theory and Schuell’s (1996) three types of schema learning speaks to your inquiry.
The first is kind of obvious: to whom and to what one attribute’s success or failure –identifying locus of control. In the second theory, the concept of ACCRETION (learning occurs when the person encodes new information to an existing schemata) and TUNING, aka SCHEMA EVOLUTION (referring to modifications in existing schemas due to changes in contexts) seems like an appropriate way to deal with a crisis regarding one’s personal schemas.
See more on this topic in the production systems and connectionist models section in the Schunk book (Psych Ed class) pages 163-166.
Stephen,
Your comment to Jude comes in a timely manner. As I struggle to read some of the information in the articles and the complex jargon that is associated with it, I find myself feeling that regardless of my short or long term capacity, I struggle to make it fit within a schema that makes sense.
As for my comments/questions on this week's reading -
With the advent of new technologies, multimedia presentation have become important in the design of instruction per Leahy, Chandler and Sweller (2003). My question is how does the quality of that multimedia presentation and subsequent auditory or visual material presented play into the issue of working memory vs. long-term memory?.
Jude - great use of Randy Pausch....my concern from the aspect of teacher education and not so much a research oriented base is that we often use "technology" to push through ideas and/or information that may or not be better suited to less "high tech" solutions. Or in a reverse way, we sometimes have to train teachers to allow the students who would benefit the most from technology (i.e. the students I have worked with who are challenged by learning disabilities which inherently include processing types of issues/challanges).
Another observation comes in the form of how do we view cognative load in light of the "types of intelligences" that Gardener has proposed (and has been an integral part of teacher ed over the past 15 to 20 years)? I know that Dr. Mitchell mentioned that in his Audiobook 1 (that this should be something that stands out).
Hi Stephen,
In light of the Leahy and Sweller article on Imagination, I am tempted to say that combining early introduction to diagrams in order to facilitate schema development combined with a two or even a three step knowledge building instructional method might just be the best way to maximize learning. Developing a curriculum that would introduce every concept in a Phase 1 and 2 fashion would not only ensure that every students gets an introduction to a concept on which schema building can begin, but the article also suggest that students with some prior knowledge would encounter only minimal if any of the expert reversal effects. What do you think?
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for sharing. All the information is very helpful and brings a diverse perspective into cognition. One of the things that come to mind as we scurry to amend our teaching practices is the importance of knowing the learner. Cognitive tests such as the WISC IV and achievements tests ie: Woodcock Johnson give us normed insight on students...From a special ed background, I come across all kinds of learners and need to have an objective measure of their abilities ie: how much cognitive load to load up...
While there is a fine line between supporting the learner and prejudicing the learner, the educator must always take a look at one's motivation for providing scaffolding.
When teachers are familiar with Multiple Intelligence Assessments, again the master teacher will seamlessly incorporate advanced organizers into the lesson keeping in mind prior knowledge of his/her students.
I wonder if the expert reversal effects measure only content gains rather than a constructivist gain type of learning? Does the "expert" really loose ground or can he/she gain from the group dynamics and awaken more of the "soft" skills intended for collaboration and group work? This after all is the heart of academe and education...Is it not?
In the readings intrinsic cognitive load was deemed uncontrollable by the instructor and that task or concept difficulty was inherent in the material. Conversely, in the audio book Dr. Mitchell said that recent research suggests that intrinsic cognitive load can be modified. My question is two fold: First, how do you think intrinsic load can be modified? Second, cognitive load, as I understand it, is defined as the learner receiving information (intrinsic and extraneous) which contributes to total cognitive load. Are the abilities or processes of the learner ever factored into what determines total cognitive load?
Jozef, I also agree with you regarding presenting young students with diagrams. First, I think they teach students to organize their thoughts and visualize material beyond what is in print. Second, in a more metacognitive way it teaches students how to learn. Learning how to learn is somewhat counterintuitive and is not taught enough in school.
In my own teaching practice my students are deaf and all of the instruction is in sign language. Many students do not have the language skills to comprehend material that is presented only through sign. However, if the lesson is anchored visually they have something to connect the signs (or words) to. The problem that I run into is that too many signs or sign and diagram at the same time could be extraneous and overload the working memory.
The first reading was very long and tedious for me to read- partially because of the intrinsic cognitive load (i.e. information was high in element interactivity) as well as extraneous (presentation of material overloaded my working memory). As schemas have developed through eventual digestion of the material and information has moved from working to long term memory subsequent readings have become less difficult because pre-existing schemas are already in place. In other words, I agree with Steven and Kelly.
Hi Ninon,
Chapter 7 in the Schunk book from Psyc ED class does addressing your questions. See page 297--309.
Chapter 5 on cognitive learning processes also have good information about the components of cognitive load and their interchangeabilities.
Hope this helps.
First, I want to ditto on what Kelly said. The audiobook and diagram was a tremendous help in processing all this potential cognitive overload. In some significant ways, I read the articles with some prior knowledge that helped me deal with the intrinsic load.
One thing Dr. Mitchell said that resonated was “Script failure is when you have the opportunity to learn.” I like to tell my students that sometimes confusion precedes understanding and allows us to learn. Last semester this might have been referred to as cognitive dissonance precipitated by a discrepant event.
Commenting on the diagram as it pertained to the Leahy and Sweller article, I wonder if rectangle can be added to the effects on the lower left side. This rectangle can be called the imagination effect. It certainly seems to have an important place. The way the imagination came into to play in that article was, in one sense, contrary to conventional practice. I would assert that conventional practice encourages the use of imagination at the earliest stages of learning and pushes it away as student progress on the K-12 continuum. Yet this article suggests that imagination is most effective with high element interactivity and with the more knowledgeable learners. Perhaps the role of imagination needs to be revisited as students ascend the academic ladder.
I noticed that these articles explicitly ignored the mention of germane cognitive load. In all three articles, it was only mentioned once. Is it less important that intrinsic load and extraneous load? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Finally, as a math person who questions the value of too much drill and extols the supposed virtues of teaching for understanding, I found some parallels here. Leahy, Chandler and Sweller recommend the removal of redundancies. While their definition of a redundancy is broader than the same drill every day, I think it does encompass that type of situation. I sure would be interested in analyzing repetitive drill using a cognitive load model.
Sorry I am a little late in joining the discussion. Everyone’s comments have given me much food for thought as I digest the information on the Cognitive Load articles.
This week’s topic is timely for me. In my Algebra classes, I am assigning a project I have developed over the years that incorporates multimedia and cross-curricular elements as a way for my student’s to convey their understanding of material we have covered over the year. I should mention my classes are fairly homogenous with a large majority of high-performing students (I teach Honors Algebra II which is open only to those students who have demonstrated a high degree of proficiency in previous math classes). The audio book and the readings have provided me with a means of evaluating my project in a way I had not considered.
Briefly, I ask my students to create a PowerPoint project which tells a story complete with plot, characters, dialogue, music, and graphics. During the telling of the story, the students must explain three sophisticated mathematical concepts studied over the course of the year. The explanation of the concepts needs to be integrated into the flow of the story. The primary objective is for students to demonstrate their understanding of the material in a new and creative way. I give the student’s a rubric to follow and show them three previous examples; one which I consider outstanding, one which is average, and one which is somewhat lacking. I ask the students to critique the sample projects. The students work in groups and have most of the semester to complete the assignment. At the end of the semester, we have a “PowerPoint festival” where we show the final products. I am constantly amazed at the creativity and deep understanding displayed by a large percentage of the students. At the same time, I am puzzled by the poor effort of a small number of students.
As I read the articles, I wonder at what point meaningful learning begins to suffer simply from too much complexity? One could argue that the PowerPoint project qualifies as complex learning: the multiple and somewhat disparate elements of the project require knowledge of sophisticated mathematical concepts; an advanced knowledge of the PowerPoint program; and an advanced knowledge of writing and storytelling. Are the requirements of the project simply a matter of too much “extraneous load?” Each of the elements required is an essential part of the project but is there a point where the large number of essential elements become extraneous and in themselves need to be organized? Dr. Mitchell suggests in the audio book that multiple schemas need to be understood in the context of scripts, “a construct that provides the underlying mental framework for our procedural knowledge.” Might there be a type of “super-schema” or “meta-schema” or “schema-that-organizes- the-schemas” that kicks in when a large number of schemas are essential? The readings do suggest that high prior knowledge might be a partial solution. Any thoughts?
Al
I liked your comment about redundancies. As someone who also teaches math, I also avoid "drill and skill" techniques but I do think there is a place for reinforced learning (read repetition?) when one is beginning to organize data into new schemas for the first time. As I understand Leahy and Sweller, the "redundancy effect" concerns repetitive instructions or explanations placed contiguously in time when one explanation would suffice. I wonder if the redundancy effect would take place if the same instructions were repeated with a sufficient amount of time inbetween?
Jude,
I couldnt agree with you more about knowing your population especially in the context of how much cognitive load is too much. I deal with a student population that is very capable. I find that the "expertise reversal effect" takes place when the student fails to modify their existing schemata as they become exposed to new and more complex information. Students with high prior knowledge sometimes become complacent thinking that since they have been "successful" for such a long time, their existing schema is sufficient. Many times, these students are caught "unawares" when new and related information becomes more nuanced.
Hello everyone,
First item I thought of while reading was an idea from Leahy, Chandler, & Sweller about could you have an instructional diagram that conveyed all the relevant information without the need for any text. The closest I can think of is the Napoleonic March diagram from Tufte--but understanding that well still requires schematic information not everyone has.
I'd like to also comment to Al that I like to teach for understanding, but have come to also want my student to automate their schemata so that we can build on them. While drill is the word some people use, I prefer the phrase "practice to fluency." For example, I get stuck trying to teach data analysis to students whose algebra skills are not automated and therefore can't be accessed without using up all their working memory, leaving no space for the working memory to develop new ideas. I like the quote Mathew used (and the attribution of which I have not found), "Amateurs practice until they get something right, but professionals practice until they can't get it wrong."
Something I wonder about is still the prevalence of ideas about multiple intelligences and learning styles and our understanding of cognition. Learning styles seems to have tons of different definitions, but I've not seen any research that shows how teaching to one style negatively impacts students who have another style. (And how are those styles measured?) Similarly, multiple intelligences usually refers to abilities or talents that can't be measured the same way that we normally think of intelligence (such as IQ tests, tests for abilities like verbal and visual processing, visuo-spatial reasoning, Raven's matrices, etc.) Has there been any connection between things like visual and auditory "learning styles" and information on verbal and visual processing "intelligence/ability"?
-Shannon
Shannon and Tony (AKA, Vito): I appreciate your salient remarks. I am not against a modicum of drill or repetition. Yes, I do seek automaticity. I simply don’t think automaticity is directly dependent on drill, and I think sometimes drill has the opposite effect.
Teaching multiplication as a rectangular array, teaching it as repeated addition, milking the multiplication table for its rich patterns, and providing context for the students to use it meaningfully are four ways that might do a world of good to encourage automaticity. Think of the modality effect: one mode alone is not sufficient. I see drill as the single most used mode to achieve automaticity, and I really think it’s redundant use backfires.
Shannon, I loved the quote about professionals practice that you selected from the audiobook as well. Continuing with my multiplication example, constant drill is not going make a student a better user of multiplication. It won’t mean that students now have the professional edge on that topic. Tony, you are right. I am really stretching the meaning of the redundancy effect. At the same time, I think my spin is consistent with the cognitive load meaning. Overuse is counterproductive to learning.
Tony and Al,
Maybe my issue with drill is just something from my experience teaching. Few of my students have fully developed math skills bags where they have all their math skills automated. The majority of students I have encountered are deficient in math and especially algebra automaticity. There is some value in going over how to do multiplication or other processes in different ways--but there is also a danger in overloading the students. (Cognitive overload) Sometimes less is more. Students can't all master multiple ways of doing a problem at once--many of them need to deal with one method at a time, adding new methods once they have learned, understood, and hopefully automated previously taught methods. I have definitely been guilty in the past of showing two ways to do a problem too close to each other in time, with the result that some students confuse the two ways and end up learning neither well.
-Shannon
Al and Shannon
I like our thread about the relationship between the redundancy effect, automation, and the more vernacular "drill and kill." Your insights are quite helpful.
In the Leahy and Sweller article (2005), Kotovsky, Hayes, & Simon(1985) make the point that "automation occurs after practice." The questions are what type of practice and how much practice? My experience is that learners who are just developing their schemas need to utilize repetition more than learners with high prior knowledge or well established schemas. In the more established learners, imagination becomes a more useful tool than repetition. An old philosophy professor once told me that creativity (and imagination?)comes AFTER basic knowledge is well established (similar to Matthew's quote "Amateurs practice until they get something right, but professionals practice until they can't get it wrong."
In the end, I think we are all saying similar things, perhaps with a slightly different emphasis.
I have enjoyed reading all of your comments and numerous perspectives on cognitive load theory. I believe I now have a greater understanding of this theory and I am relying less on my notes and the articles to recognize the terminology and concepts being used. HOORAY for schema construction and automation!
I was not surprised to discover that students who were presented with audio/visuals while dealing with high element interactivity information were able to perform better compared to students who were only exposed to visual/text when the visual (i.e., graph, diagram) was not rendered intelligible on its own. As a middle school reading specialist, I am convinced that my students’ performance would also improve with the audio accompanying the visual due to their below grade-level reading abilities. They would have access to the curriculum and instructional materials that would not have been accessible to them if they were expected to read it on their own.
Teachers have no control over intrinsic cognitive load (i.e., California grade-level standards) but they do have an influence on extraneous cognitive load. I have been sharing many concepts and strategies (working memory capacity, diagrams, dual-modality formats such as audio/visual presentation, imagination effect, etc…) with my colleagues and they have all asked me WHY this type of research is not more readily obtainable or integrated in their curriculum. How does this research on effective teaching and learning practices find its way into the classroom where it belongs? Do textbook publishers incorporate research findings such as these into their instructional materials?
The audio and the articles were particularly relevant earlier this week when I was observing a ELDI class. I was sitting next to a student who had enrolled a few weeks ago from Mexico. I happened to know that he had only completed the nint grade in his own country. As was watched him try to mask his frustration, I was reflected on the issue of congnitive load and how it was affecting this fifteen year old. Dr. Mitchell's audio referred to meaningful learning needing prior knowledge and schema. In terms of learning in a US school this youmg man had neither.
Comment – Interactions among the imagination, expertise reversal, and element interactivity effects (Leahy & Sweller, 2005)
For the past few days, I have been pondering my teaching habits in terms of reducing extraneous cognitive load for my inexpert learners. This is the start of a new semester, and so I have 180 new students to think about. Are my instructional practices steeped in efficient procedures or are my remedial students subjected to burdensome, irrelevant, excessive tedium that unnecessarily escalates extraneous cognitive load?
My Beginning Algebra students (inexpert math learners, at the college level) have a pretty dangerous arsenal of faulty scripts and schemas from math mis-learned in the past. They benefit from explicit instruction in math study skills, but complex instructional techniques such as imagining are not as beneficial until we can fix some of the faulty scripts. After the proper scripts have been established, imagining through visualization can begin as a form of rehearsal – but then evolves into higher-level synthesis of complex information.
Many inexpert students do not seem to know that the Teacher takes responsibility for Teaching, but the Learner takes responsibility for Learning. Passive learning habits can add to extraneous cognitive load. For example, one of my students asked if I could explicitly list all odd-numbered problems on printed assignment sheets, because she finds it too time-consuming to translate an instruction such as “Do 1-55 Odd”. She apparently had been stewing about this for several days and her frustration had added to her cognitive load. I first checked to make sure that the student understood the term “odd” – and she clearly did, easily reciting a string of odd numbers. I also looked at her homework, which was reasonably well-organized with odd numbers completed, indicating that she is capable of interpreting the instruction. Her perspective is that I am imposing irrelevant requirements adding to her cognitive load. My perspective is that she has the basic elements of the script (can write and recite odds), and that as a college math student she should develop the schema to fluently understand “odds” and “evens”. I suggested that she should list the assigned odd numbers on top of her paper, and then could refer to her own list as she progresses through the assignment. In other words, I expect her to take responsibility for creating and practicing a working schema for this task. She was clearly startled that I expect her to do this for herself. Her faulty assumption that I should build this scaffold had added to her cognitive load and had interfered with quick development of a good schema for tackling homework.
In terms of course content, the theme in Beginning Algebra for the past three days has been “from script to schema”. As I demonstrate the steps of the problem, I will say “this is the script” or “this is the procedure”. And I mention the terms “schema” or “declarative knowledge” within the context of choosing appropriate method when presented with a problem-solving task. My theory is that these young adults may benefit from learning a little about learning theory. The terms “scripts” and “schemas” may help them understand that they need fluent schemas to be successful in math. Admittedly, I have my moments of saying, “I just added to your extraneous cognitive load, didn’t I?” and they will reply in a chorus of “Yes!”. And we all laugh, and start once again with the scripts…
Question – Interactions among the imagination, expertise reversal, and element interactivity effects (Leahy & Sweller, 2005)
The content of this article is intuitively appealing, and I believe that what the authors describe is true, real and relevant. My question is about the research design of the study. For 20+ years, I worked in the Research Department of CTB/ McGraw-Hill, where a small sample size would be n=1000. As a first-year student new to reading this type of educational research, I am still surprised by what I perceive to be extremely small sample sizes and often wonder if the results are statistically valid.
I was bothered by the procedure and results in experiment 2. Ten students (of 15) moved from Phase 1 Imagination to Phase II Study, and overall the Phase II Study group scored lower than the Phase II Imagination group. Conversely, of the 15 students in the Phase II Imagination Group, 10 had the benefit (?) of being in the Phase I Study group. I am wondering if the mathematical results really show that Imagination is better for complex material? Perhaps the movement of 10 better-prepared students into the Phase II Imagination Group, and 10 less-prepared students into the Phase II Study Group heavily influenced the final mathematical result.
Hi Vito,
I want to steal your math curriculum, please. Your project sounds amazing.
The math, science and engineering majors in my Finite Math class are quite proficient in knowing how to churn through the steps of complex math problems, so I feel it’s my job to challenge (torture?) them with intellectual stretches forcing them to synthesize…The first-quiz-of-the-semester that I gave today was a shock to their systems … 3 computational questions and 5 ESSAY questions about logarithms, geometric progressions, and comparing/contrasting two mathematical techniques. As they left, they had that shell-shocked “there goes my GPA” look on their faces…but I know they will adapt and eventually enjoy.
Wow, all of your posts have been so fabulous I can't wait to see you all on Sat and chat about them!
I have so many comments I wish to make, and wish there was a better threading system here so we could reply to a particular comment directly!
Drill and Kill: I think there is a place for memorization and practice in the building of schema. For some concepts we need the "basics" in order to be able to assemble them into more complex schematic structures. I think this happens most commonly in Language and Math as they are tools which we use to communicate more complex ideas.
ELD, Cognitive Load and Linguistics. Building on the ideas of the "basics" all three of the articles had scribbles (by the time I was done reading) about how difficult it is to build schema in a different culture as well as language. Currently, we are exploring meeting the needs of all students in a classroom with our new teachers. These very timely readings gave me much to consider and share. Are we being "redundant" with our GATE students, causing learning to be impeded? Are we neglecting our LD students because of the ways in which we rely on primarily visual, textual inputs? Are we providing good scaffolding for our ELD students, remembering what it was like to be a novice learner in a subject?
Digital Nativism. I wonder how much of a role digital nativism plays in the success of multi-media inputs. As a majority of the test subjects were from a middle-class school one might presume that they are digital natives who are quite used to multi-modal inputs (TV, MP3 players, YouTube, etc.) as modes of communication. Would we have the same success with students from a non-western diadic tradition?
Imagination and Apprenticeship. As I read (and listened to the read-aloud... thanks Dr. Mitchell!) the article on Imagination the ideas of apprenticeship learning kept surfacing in my mind. Are the students able to make complex connections and such because imagination requires them to rehearse and apply the information? Is the process of creating and imagining necessary for mental interactivity? Is this human nature, when I am rehearsing a song in a crowded place, I feel my vocal cords moving with the words in my mind as I sub-vocalize. Is Imagination practice a way in which we actually could layer visual, audio and kinesthetic modalities into a lesson?
Loads to ponder. Great articles and FAB posts! Can't wait until Saturday!!!!
Stephen,
I too am interested in how the actions of educators (inclusive of parents and families) develop structures within the brain. I think it would be cool to see if any of these would result in changes in fMRI.
OK here is my 2nd post--about the cog. audiobook listening(and BTW I'm not confident in this but here goes)...Where it discusses INTRINSIC LOAD (around 43 min) which I understand is about inherently complex material with element interactivity that on its own increases the load. Yet in the GERMANE LOAD example, there is talk about how teaching calculus to kids as an example of how that's not germane thus increases the load unnecessarily-- isn't calculus also an example of intrinsic difficulty, too. So if there are aspect of calculus that on some level can be taught to kids (but in chunks), that would be reducing the intrinsic load of this complex topic and making it germane by making it age-appropriate and meaningful use.
Hi Sharon,
I suppose it would be possible to teach typical 4th-graders basic ideas about calculus. My belief is that pushing very abstract math into elementary school curricula does not result in permanent meaningful learning. Proficiency in arithmetic and algebra is essential for true capability in calculus.
It's like the difference between listening to music and playing music. I can appreciate music through listening, but that doesn't mean that I can play an instrument or compose music - I simply don't have the underlying skillset. So, my analogy is that perhaps a 4th-grader could appreciate calculus (maybe), but they really can't DO calculus until they build a very strong math toolkit.
Calculus is not germane for most 4th-graders, and the cognitive load is impossibly high.
Because I am having my own cognitive load issues with getting on board with blogging, my first post was quite brief, but I wanted to expand on it. The ELD lesson I observed was fairly basic with a focus on household related vocabulary. However, the lesson also touched on pronouns, contractions and the verb to be. The tax on the young man’s working memory had to be extreme. A dilemma for the teacher exists with the diverse education and skills of the students in the class. Some of the twelve students in the class have had little schooling in their own country like the student I described having finished only the fourth grade. Other students in the class are quite literate in their native language and have had a fairly normal school experience. A worksheet the class was working on had diagrams of different rooms in a house including an attic, a garage, and a picture of a man mowing his lawn. For some students, their prior knowledge made the lesson accessible. However, for some of the others, their prior knowledge was not going to allow for meaningful learning to take place.
In terms of the readings, I had some questions. Leahy and Sweller refer to the characteristics of learners and the characteristics of the learning material on p. 268. I was not sure if the characteristics of learners is referring to learning styles, and I was curious about where learning styles and modalities come in to play with cognitive load. I was also not sure what was exactly meant by the characteristics of learning materials. Is this referring to graphic organizers and other ways to initially present information and materials? I also have questions about the difference between imagination effect and visualization. They both require prior knowledge, and although the readings indicated that there was a difference, I’m not sure I saw it.
Ok, I have a bijillion things to say about the readings and audiobooks and previous comments. I’ll separate ‘em out into different comments since this blog doesn’t have sub-threads.
On the topic of the blog: Why can’t we reply to comments or have email notification of responses to our posts like on livejournal? Is that a shortcoming of blogger?
I notice a check-box with "email follow-up comments to..." but there are no follow-up comments. hmmm...
Re: The Cognitive Load Audiobook: Thanks, Dr. Mitchell for employing the very ideas you described in the lecture. From “chunking” elements (such as the various factors of extraneous, germane, and intrinsic load) to utilizing “phonological loop” and “visuo-spatial sketchpad” in tandem in order to efficiently keep these ideas in working memory, you set up an excellent example of these theories in application. Also, the writing in the articles exemplifies the same ideas, such as minimizing split attention and redundancy effects (the way visuals and examples are organized and utilized, particularly in the Leahy articles), using formal structure to organize and relate ideas, and activating prior knowledge by defining terms simply.
On the topic of prior knowledge and its influence on cognitive load (and meaningful learning): What about faulty knowledge or schema and the erroneous interpretation of new elements according to those incorrect scripts or schema? I’m thinking in terms of the video first years watched in psych class last semester, which showed competent students maintaining conceptual errors even after extensive reteaching and practice. This question is inspired by Raylene’s comment regarding her beginning algebra students’ knowledge gaps and misunderstandings. I run up against this a lot in my classroom too (specifically, when poor understanding or misunderstanding of fractions interferes with application in reading subdivision of beat).
The Leahy and Sweller article doesn’t address this at all, as this is clearly outside the scope of their investigation, yet, this seems closely related to the ideas they present regarding the effect of instructional strategies based on students’ high or low prior knowledge. A third variable might be “incorrect prior knowledge”.
In response to Raylene’s comment about sample size: didn’t we learn in stats that 30 is about as small a sample as you can use to get a valid result? I’m with you, Raylene, the Leahy and Sweller study, (along with article 15 in the research methods reading) seems awfully small. How do we really decide if results are valid?
Re: Intrinsic Load and Aptitude-Treatment Interactions (Leahy et al. 2003 p. 403): It seems I have been fed some misinformation, that hitting the same material through multiple modes is the way to go, no matter your student demographics. So, now that I’ve seen the error of my ways, I’m still wondering, how do some students make immediate connections to prior knowledge that others might see as unrelated? I’m having trouble coming up with an example of this, but I’m sure you’ve all come across those students who seem to swallow up new stuff whole. When you ask how they picked up so quickly, they say, “oh, well the receptors are kinda like your gym locker, where you’re supposed to just memorize the combination, but then, there’s this key hole that just sits there and the gym teacher has the key in case you forget your combo…” and there’s this massive, off-the-wall metaphor that explains it so well. The question hidden in all of that is: Can we teach that? I use metaphor all the time to explain musical concepts, but can my students learn to generate these on their own? Or, can I at least, help students to look for remote associations when presented with new elements? Is that even a valuable skill?
Susan says, I have been following the comments in the Dig and attempting to integrate what we are getting in content with the students and classrooms I serve. Most of the students have some kind of atypical nuerological function, lack social emotional competence and exhibit behavior challenges. What I am reflecting on is how the intrinsic cognitive load of the academic subject is compounded not only by extrinsic load from intructional choices teachers make, but from the extrinsic load from the students internal processing because of their mental health. This is something I can share with teachers who become frustrated with these students who disrupt the class and seem to take so much extra time.
Susan says, Since winter break I have been working with two teams to increase their willingness to give students the time to develop the social emotional skills they need. These two students are just examples of the complexity of the types of decisions and planning teachers are making in our classrooms today.
As I read through all the comments on our first readings, I too Sharon, feel I am getting a much better understanding of cognitive load. I've enjoyed the ongoing dialogue. I find myself, through this process, the Read Aloud and the articles; my mind is running around accessing every schema I have. I have floated in and out of how this learning currently affects my k-5 special education students and contrasting it with my own learning through this program.
With respect to my own students and their need to have information repeated over and over again and in many different ways in order for its safe journey from short term/working memory into long term memory, I often feel I am experiencing "Groundhog Day" the movie. I am comforted in cognitive load theory; it has already begun to help me think about how I will work on extraneous load to better instruct my students.
With regards to my own learning, I have rarely had an instructor that puts into practice what he/she is teaching. Dr. Mitchell has done this via technology and I want to say how nice it is to learn this way.
Jude, I agree, its hard to put into practice these theories. My students have moderate disabilities so they are VERY limited in judging their own cognitive load - as well as their own understandings. I am working with teaching them how to develop and ask each other questions, but since many of them are not only cognitively impaired by ELL students, it is a daunting process.
Regarding Carlson, Chandler, and Sweller article on science instructional materials: Apologies for the tardiness of this post.
I would like to comment on the process of moving the schema knowledge from controlled to automatic processing. The idea of lessening cognitive load through this process points out why difficult concepts are so hard to teach to my students (who have moderate disabilities). They have difficulty forming and retaining the schemata in the first place. Working Memory is often put into overload. So, it is often difficult to attain the automaticity needed to add to that schema at some later date. Learning complex concepts, and even simple though abstract concepts (rather than concrete examples where realia can be used) is often extremely difficult and tenuous at best.
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