Mentor materials
Setting the scene and reducing cognitive load
Intended outcomes
The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:
Learn that:
- Learning involves a lasting change in pupils’ capabilities or understanding
- An important factor in learning is memory, which can be thought of as comprising two elements: working memory and long-term memory
- Working memory is where information that is being actively processed is held, but its capacity is limited and can be overloaded
- Long-term memory can be considered as a store of knowledge that changes as pupils learn by integrating new ideas with existing knowledge
Learn how to avoid overloading working memory by:
- Breaking complex material into smaller steps (e.g. using partially completed examples to focus pupils on the specific steps)
- Reducing distractions that take attention away from what is being taught (e.g. keeping the complexity of a task to a minimum, so that attention is focused on the content)
Learn how to make good use of expositions, by:
- Combining a verbal explanation with a relevant graphical representation of the same concept or process, where appropriate
Activities
Introduction to the module (5 minutes)
Welcome the ECT to this module.
Explain to the ECT that the purpose of this module is to begin thinking about ‘how pupils learn’. Much of this is based on what we have learnt from cognitive science and rests on our understanding of two important parts of the memory: long-term memory and working memory. These are very important considerations for teachers as they need to take into account the limitations of memory when planning and teaching. The working memory can easily become overloaded and this will be a focus for this topic on how to reduce the cognitive load.
Help connect the ECT into the theme of this module with some of these questions:
- Can you think of a time when your own working memory was overloaded? (e.g. learning to drive, university lectures)
- How did it feel?
- Have you ever noticed pupils in your class reach overload point?
- What did they say/do that made you notice?
- When they experienced cognitive overload, did the content get learnt? (By learnt we mean a lasting change, so the material is in the long-term memory)
Reviewing the evidence (20 minutes)
Guidance to mentors:
- The ECT should have read the ‘Understanding the evidence’ section of the self-directed study materials ahead of the topic.
- The mentor should also familiarise themselves with the content.
- In this portion of the mentor topic, the mentor will ask questions to check the ECT’s understanding of what they have read. The guidance below provides a full range of responses that show understanding. However, the mentor should not treat this as a ‘test’ of the ECT’s knowledge; use the prompts to elicit fuller answers or clarify if they have misunderstood any aspect.
Questions:
What do you understand as the difference between long-term memory and working memory?
- Long-term memory is the vast store for facts and knowledge which we have.
- Information in our long-term memory is unconscious. We don’t actively know it is there until we need it.
- Working memory is where thinking takes place.
- We pull information from our long-term memory and new information from the environment into our working memory and combine it to create new ‘schemas’ (mental models), which we store in our long-term memory.
- Working memory has limited capacity and can become overloaded.
What happens when the working memory becomes overloaded?
- When our working memory becomes overloaded, we have too many pieces of information in it to cope.
- If we have too many pieces of information to cope with, we will start to forget steps or information we might need to complete a task.
How might this affect learning in the classroom?
- We are unlikely to learn new things in this situation.
- Pupils are more likely to give up when their working memory is overloaded. The task feels too overwhelming.
- Pupils may miss steps or forget to finish problems (e.g. leaving off the units in a maths problem)
- Pupils may make false connections or develop misconceptions because they develop a weak or shallow understanding of a concept.
What are some of the techniques you read about that a teacher can use to ensure that pupils don’t become overloaded?
- Limiting complex multi-step instructions
- Breaking new content into small, manageable amounts to introduce to pupils
- Taking your time with new material – don’t rush and give pupils time to process
- Use memory aids like writing on the whiteboard so pupils don’t need to use working memory when attempting tasks.
Adapting a lesson to reduce the cognitive load (30 minutes)
Explain to the ECT that one way of reducing cognitive load is to carefully consider how they introduce new material.
Open Handout 2.1 and read through the techniques together.
Discussion:
Consider a lesson your ECT will be teaching in the next week or so, in which pupils will be required to engage with some particularly complex or difficult learning which might represent a significant cognitive load. Think about:
- What information pupils will need to learn?
- How will this be presented?
- How much information will they need to keep in working memory throughout the task(s)?
Planning together:
- Look at the upcoming lesson and identify some new learning, which might be difficult or complex for the students.
- Go through Handout 2.1 and together choose one of the approaches to trial in the lesson.
- The mentor and ECT should plan in detail, for example creating the slides or scripting out the explanation that the ECT will give to the pupils.
- Spend at least five minutes with the ECT practicing delivery of this segment of the lesson and the mentor providing feedback and suggestions
Planning for action
Confirm when the ECT will teach the lesson with the segment planned in this topic.
Ask the ECT to make a note of what they noticed and how well they thought the approach worked so that they can discuss it in the next topic.