Cognitive Load Theory in Action: How Not to Drive Your Students Crazy

Quite often, my students complain that online lessons, YouTube videos, or book instructions can be extremely overwhelming. They find it difficult to follow the steps without either getting bored or becoming unable to proceed.

That frustrating feeling is cognitive load in action. As an instructional designer or art educator – whether you are teaching an online class on still lifes with acrylics or a masterclass on oil techniques – it is essential to avoid this instructional mistake.

I must admit, it is a mistake I make too often myself. That is exactly what Mayer’s Multimedia Principles combined with Cognitive Load theory are designed to address.

As we learn, our working memory acts as a relatively small, temporary workspace in the brain. It is great for processing a few things at once, but if you pile too much onto it, the learning process will eventually stall.

Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) breaks this down into three types:

• Intrinsic load: This is the inherent difficulty of the material. Learning to layer acrylic glazes or understanding the 'adequate reflection' of light on a surface is intrinsically complex. We manage this by breaking the process into digestible steps.

• Extraneous load: This is the bad load – anything that distracts from learning. Think of a 'wholly decorative' border on your slides or background music that is too loud. If a graphic of a brush doesn’t help explain a specific stroke, it is merely visual noise.

• Germane (relevant) load: This is the good load – the mental effort spent on deep processing. When a student successfully connects a color-mixing theory to the 'way of seeing' in their own work, they are building germane load.

  
  

Mayer’s principles provide research-backed guidelines for combining words and pictures to optimize the learning of art. I have gathered these principles and recommendations for an instructional designer/ or instructor into the infographic below:

Obviously, it's hard difficult to measure cognitive load in a real-world, real-time educational setting. especially in online teaching. If the instruction is happening in a synchronous format (live demonstration), I try to adapt and somewhat "play by ear". If it's asynchronous, the best practice is to break the material into processable chunks (not overloaded with multimedia "decor" and make the learning structured, but student-led, so that they would be able to work at their own pace and according to their backgrounds and abilities.

Based on the following readings:

• Arshavskiy, M. (2017). Instructional Design for ELearning: Essential guide to creating successful eLearning courses. Kindle Edition.

• Mayer, R. (2021). Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press.

• Sweller, J. (2010). Element interactivity and intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load. Educational Psychology Review, 22(2), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-010-9128-5.