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Writer's pictureCatherine Edwards

Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory in Action




Back in October I asked Twitter for a book recommendation. We undertake a Professional Development Project at school and my focus was Goal free problems. Oliver Lovell's book was highly recommended.














 

With the switch to remote learning priorities changed so I've only just managed to read it.


It's a great read, full of information and really practical examples.


Sketch Notes


As always I want to think about immediate tweaks to my current practice and ideas to explore more. Many of the ideas I had already been thinking about and implementing from previous reading of

  • Craig Barton's "Reflect, Expect, Check, Explain"

  • Oliver Caviglioli's "Dual Coding with Teachers"

  • Yana Weinstein's "Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide"


Immediately

  1. Be more deliberate in the pre-teaching of vocabulary (which conveniently fits in with the whole school T&L focus)

  2. Use Subject Network time to create skills hierarchy

  3. Continue chunking skills but try using some of the different ways of using worked examples

  4. Be more deliberate in interleaving skills

  5. Introducing fading for longer questions

Longer term/ Department level changes


  1. Creating "Bullet Proof" definitions of concepts, I think in Maths this might look like

    1. Definitions of key words

    2. strong explanations of key skills

  2. Looking at the Scheme of work to see how and where students are exposed to different problems and associated actions

  3. Continue looking at the Goal free effect (this will have it's own separate post later" and using goal free problems in class.

Questions I want to ask

  1. How does visual/verbal memory and neurodiversity interact? Thinking about the discussions around aphantasia but also other atypicality

  2. How can we share/what information should we share with students about the science of learning. Would it be helpful?

  3. Are calculations written on the board visual or verbal?

That's it for now, I'd recommend a read of this book if you haven't already.

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