What a Load of...

In the field of psychology, cognitive load theory generally describes the relationship between the short-term memory and the long-term memory.  Just like it appears in the name, the short-term memory is capable of getting "loaded" with too much information at a time.  The theory states that people learn best in an environment when this kind of structure is realized and learning is catered to it.  That is, teachers can teach students best when they are not expecting students to grasp too much material all at once.

                                    


Also in the theory is a way for people to create "structures" known as schemas to make learning easier.  The easiest way to look at the term "schemas" is to think of them as categories.  For example, if a student is looking at their notes to study for a big unit test in history, it might not be wise to tackle it all and memorize it all at once.  Instead, breaking these concepts into "schemas" can help them stick in the brain better.  That is, a student can try and break down the concepts into categories like pre-Civil War, during the Civil War, and after the Civil War.  It can even benefit a student more if they associate these categories with pictures or music.  Personally, when I'm studying for a test that I'm not too confident about, I try and pick a few songs to associate certain material with, and then I recall the songs when I'm actually taking a test.  It's a schema (sort of) of mine!

So how can teachers use this theory to their advantage?  Basically, the way Sweller (the source of my source) describes it, teachers need to design instruction in a way that reduces the working memory load (in other words, the short term memory) and can facilitate the creation of these schemas.  As a future math teacher, this means getting kids to not memorize the formulas, but helping them to apply them in examples and using them more in the long-run.  This means having concrete examples on quizzes or tests rather than quizzing for definitions or formulas.


Source:
Soloman, Howard.  Cognitive Load Theory (J. Sweller).  Accessed September 16, 2010.  Found at http://tip.psychology.org/sweller.html.

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