Hi, I need help with essay on Discuss the underlying cognitive structures and processes that form cognitive load theory. Discuss at least three instructional techniques that are generated from this theory and apply them to an area of interest to you. Paper must be at least 2000 words. Please, no plagiarized work!
Working memory is actually referring to the short term memory in which one can remember or memorize things for a very short period of time. If this working memory is too crammed and too full of various different instructions then one tends to forget, that is, the memory fails to work. Instructions may be of different types.
It may be related to teaching a person how to develop reasoning skills and perception skills or it may be related to learning an entirely new language or it may be instructions on some other problem solving skill. The basic thing in a learning process is to understand (also known as schema) well, as many would agree. However as one learns more in a shorter time span the cognitive load also increases. This is best seen while trying to learn a new language. One will have to understand the instructions given and also translate at the same time. Here the cognitive load is much higher than learning in ones own language. So the trick lies with the instructor manipulating the cognitive load in such a way that the learner can learn and memorize better.
Cognitive Load as a theory had been put to use indirectly since the seventies through the works of Baddelly and Hitch (1974), Beatty (1977) and Marsh (1978). In fact the study of cognitive science started in the mid fifties with the research work of G.A. Miller (1956) in this field of science. It was Miller who first suggested that that our “working memory” can remember only up to a certain extent and thus is very limited. Nevertheless, Cognitive Load as a branch of science became prominent after John Swellers research work and his subsequent paper on it in 1988. As Lewis (2008) tells us “Even Baddeley and Hitch (1974) considered “concurrent memory load” but Sweller’s cognitive load theory was the first to consider working memory, as it related to learning and the design of instruction” (Lewis, Knol – A unit of Knowledge, 2008 ). Extensive research work
