Articles:Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design
From unthinkMedia
It is suggested that when considering intellectual activities, schema acquisition and automation are the primary mechanisms of learning.
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schema
A schema is the cognitive method of organizing knowledge in a manner that is conducive to "how" the knowledge will be dealt with when pulled from long-term memory.
"Schemas allow people to deal effortlessly with the potentially infinite variety of objects."
Example of schemas in reading:
- letters
- words
- word combinations
Example of schemas to solve problems:
- (a + b)/c = d, solve for a
"knowledge and intellectual skill based on knowledge is heavily dependent on schema acquisition. Schemas provide the basic unit of knowledge and through their operation can explain a substitutional proportion of our learning-mediated intellectual performance." (pg. 297)
Through chunking individual elements into a single element, schemas effectively increase the amount of information that can be held in working memory.
While the number of items held in working memory may be very limited, schemas allow for increases in working memory A schema not only permits long-term memory storage but also by-passes working memory limitations.
Automation of Intellectual Operations
When we first learn something, our ability to use the knowledge take a lot of effort and requires considerable cognitive effort to the process. As we become more familiar with the concepts the skill may become automatic to the point where it may require minimal thought for its operation.
"Without automation, performance is slow, clumsy and prone to error. It is an essential mechanism of learning."
Automation also has a significant effect on working memory. It permits working memory to be by-passed. Processing that occurs automatically requires less working memory space and as a consequence, capacity is freed for other functions. In this sense, automation, like schema acquisition, may have a primary function of circumventing limited processing capacity. Both
Element Interactivity
Information complexity is typically due to the individual relationships that content shares with each other. Knowledge is seen to have high element interactivity, if the task cannot be learned without simultaneously learning the connections between a large number of elements.
In contrast, when elements of knowledge could be learned in isolation. The complexity drops considerably for each element .
While extraneous cognitive load can severely reduce instructional effectiveness, it may do so only when coupled with a high intrinsic cognitive
- If experimenters use relatively low element interactivity materials experiments based on some aspect of cognitive load theory may not obtain any of the effects associated with the theory.
Reference
Sweller, J. (1994). Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design. Learning and Instruction, 4, 295-312.
