{"id":3456,"date":"2021-05-18T12:20:31","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T02:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/?p=3456"},"modified":"2021-05-18T12:20:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T02:50:31","slug":"reducing-the-cognitive-load-of-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/2021\/05\/18\/reducing-the-cognitive-load-of-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Reducing the cognitive load of study"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I\u2019m building something (to be honest, I am always building something).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a program intended to help students get back on track with their learning and then sustain that performance whilst also attending to their mental health and wellbeing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is in the early stages at the moment but it is intended to be an expanded service offering for Health, Counselling and Disability Services.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of building it, I am thinking more specifically about the learning experience. How do you build something that is engaging and informative but also achievable\/ manageable, especially for students who have fallen behind on their studies? There is no use creating a helping service that is more complex than the studies they are having trouble engaging with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To learn more I have been delving into areas of psychology I haven\u2019t previously explored. One of those is cognitive load theory. I am just at the beginning, but I recently read and took notes on a paper by John Sweller – <\/span>https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11423-019-09701-3<\/span><\/a> called \u201cCognitive load theory and educational technology\u201d. I thought it relevant as what I am trying to build is in the digital realm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Whilst the bulk of what I took from the paper was for my purposes, there were some concepts\/ideas that I think might be relevant to students. I thought I\u2019d explore them in this post.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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How complex the learning experience is will depend on how much previous knowledge you have of the topic\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

When you are dealing with totally novel information, you are going to have to bite it off in pretty small chunks first as you will be taxing your working memory, which doesn\u2019t have a large capacity for novel information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For information that needs remembering, break it into parts first (e.g. using flash cards) and then as you learn the individual chunks, start piecing them together. The more familiar you get with the material, the easier you will find it to start remembering it in larger chunks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For complex tasks (e.g. writing an essay, complex calculations), you are going to want to start with some worked examples. See how other people have solved the calculation or approached the essay topic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Warning: whilst accessing and analysing existing essays on a topic is a great way to learn how to write, it doesn\u2019t mean you can copy those essays. Plagiarism is bad mkay.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Working memory might operate like a muscle and get fatigued \ud83d\udcaa<\/b><\/p>\n

When you are learning new material, you are pushing your working memory to its limits over an extended period of time. My understanding is that it fatigues as a result.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same way that you can\u2019t indefinitely keep working out a muscle, you can\u2019t indefinitely push your working memory. It needs time to rest.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does working memory rest look like?<\/span><\/p>\n

The most obvious is good quality regular sleep. I enjoyed this talk on sleep recently – warning, it is long, but very interesting – <\/span>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nm1TxQj9IsQ<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Other working memory rejuvenation methods include:<\/span><\/p>\n