Module · Domain D3
Cognitive load
Learners can only work with a little new information at once. Cognitive load research asks how explanations and tasks can make room for thinking — and where its claims are firmer or weaker than often presented.
A narrow workspace
Working memory — the part of the mind that holds and manipulates what we are thinking about right now — can only handle a few new items at once. (Cowan, 2001) Cognitive load theory starts from this limit and asks what it means for teaching.
Two kinds of load
Some load comes from the material itself: solving a simultaneous equation requires juggling more elements than adding two numbers. This is called intrinsic load, and it depends on what the learner already knows. Other load comes from how the material is presented — searching a separate key, decoding a cluttered slide, or working out what a task is asking. This is extraneous load, and it is the part teachers can most easily reduce. (Sweller et al., 2019)
Why novices and experts differ
Knowledge in long-term memory lets an expert treat a familiar pattern as one chunk. A novice sees the same problem as many separate pieces. That is why fully worked examples tend to help beginners, while the same examples can become redundant — or even unhelpful — for students who already understand. (Kalyuga et al., 2003)
What it is not
Cognitive load theory is not an argument for making learning easy. Effort directed at the ideas being learned is the point. The aim is to strip away effort spent on things that do not matter, so that more capacity is left for the things that do. Claims that it rules out all inquiry learning go beyond the evidence. (Kirschner et al., 2006)