Lessons · Teaching · the three kinds of cognitive load
The three kinds of load, and the only one you cut
Three things compete for that small desk: the difficulty of the idea itself, which is intrinsic load; the effort wasted on how the lesson is presented, which is extraneous load; and the effort that actually builds the understanding, which is germane load.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
An observer wrote 'increase engagement' on your form and left, and nobody said how. A good half of what looks like disengagement is a slide with four fonts, a worksheet whose instructions sit at the foot of the page, a key on the back, and you talking over a diagram while they try to read it. That is effort spent finding the lesson instead of learning it.
How to think about it
Take one resource and audit it in three columns. What is the idea's own difficulty, which you leave alone. What is spent on hunting, decoding and flipping back, which you cut. What is left for thinking, which you protect by cutting the middle column.
Worked example
Worksheet audit, 3 columns: idea, presentation, thinkingThree questions asked of one page, in the order you ask them.
Idea: subtracting with regrouping, 2 steps, both newThe difficulty of the thing itself. It stays. You can split it across two lessons; you cannot make it simple.
Presentation: instructions at the foot of the page, key on the back, 4 fontsEffort spent finding the lesson rather than doing it. This is the column you empty.
Thinking: 8 practice items, the same 2 steps eachWhat is left for building the method. Every minute cut from the middle column arrives here.
Your turn
Name the kind of load that a badly laid out worksheet adds and that a teacher cuts.
Effort spent finding the lesson rather than doing it is load.
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Cutting the idea instead of the presentation. Making the maths easier is not reducing load, it is teaching something else; the fonts, the layout and the talking over the diagram are the free wins.