What are our lesson design principles to reduce cognitive load?

Whilst we're deep in the midst's of our curriculum reviews, in my latest blog post I wish to shine a light on 'lesson design principles' as many of us our progressing on from conceptual links we want to make across year groups and key stages, towards the planning stages of any new schemes of work. This is not a blog post about what colours or fonts our lesson materials should be, but rather the principles of how we coherently map the learning pathways in our everyday lessons.

What is my reasoning for this? It stems from an email communication I have had with a Year 10 parent this week. Her child is dyslexic and before home learning commenced, as a parent she knew very little about the format and layout of the resources that her child was given in school. Her first comment was 'May I thank you for the clarity of the resources you have been uploading, my child is able to work out exactly what is expected of him as you have not overloaded the instructions'. Mike Marsh will be proud!! 

I stumbled across this old twitter post from Oliver Caviglioli during my research: 

Yes, I appreciate that the message is a relatively obvious one but its the 'interaction to reduce the cognitive load for the user' part that grabbed my attention. Why do we focus so much on cognitive load? Because we have a duty to reduce the demands on our students working memories so that they can learn more effectively. Let's remind ourselves of this concept in which it is essential that we provide adequate opportunities for our students to retrieve knowledge they have learned, but that their initial introduction to this new knowledge must be carefully planned so as not to overwhelm their senses. For further reading on this, can I recommend this 2 minute read from Teacher Toolkit: https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/2019/03/18/cognitive-load-theory/

So how does this relate to 'lesson design principles'. As we consider our curriculums moving forward, and our desire to make them ambitious, knowledge rich and culturally broad, we must assign time to consider how we present these lessons to our students. Within 'Teaching Walkthrus' by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli, the following principles are encouraged, especially in relation to the learning of new knowledge: 

1. Use tables with columns of related information.

2. Bullet point lists of key words and ideas that you deem the most important aspects students should know.

3. Show sequence in your lesson or knowledge pathway with natural flows on your resources.

4. Ensure that diagrams are clearly labelled and avoid the use of extended prose - save that for when time is not so overwhelmed and knowledge has been retrieved and not learned for the first time.

How do we then build on this to ensure our learning pathway is challenging and progressive? Well we then provide supports at what the authors call an 'overview level'. These whole-task scaffolds we may wish to plan in can include:

1. Essay structure strips - guidelines for a series of paragraphs.

2. Partially completed examples - started off but not finished.

3. Checklists of success criteria

4. Checking prompts i.e. have to ensured your point is backed up with evidence?

5. Examples of completed tasks that students can assess.

Finally, it is important that we 'take the scaffolding down too'! I love this phrase! During my PGCE back in 2003, scaffolding was the absolute buzz word. To be told to take it down is provocative, if a little scary. However, if all other lesson design principles are followed then this part of the lesson can be easily achieved with a Mangotsfield favourite - I do it, We do it, You do it - I, WE, YOU! Its vital we give students the chance to show what they are capable of unsupported. Choosing when we remove the scaffolding is our own professional decision but one we should grasp the opportunity to do with both hands. I for one will be building these principles into the new lessons I am currently planning for the re-energised Geography KS3 curriculum.