Cognitive load theory in practice

Claire Badger, Senior Teacher, Teaching and Learning, The Godolphin and Latymer School, UK Sweller’s cognitive load theory (CLT; Sweller et al., 1998) has been described as a theory that teachers really need to understand (New South Wales DoE, 2017) to teach effectively. The theory has been summarised elsewhere (e.g. Kirschner, 2002; Tharby, 2019; Boxer, 2018) but the key implication for teaching is that we should maximise the amount of working memory that is dedicated to transferring information that is being learned to long-term memory (germane cognitive load). We can do this by ascertaining the level of prior knowledge of our students (in order to accurately assess the level of intrinsic cognitive load of the learning task) and by designing instructional experiences to minimise extraneous, non-productive cognitive load. This article describes how I have applied these principles to my A-level chemistry teaching. Presenting new material The use of worked examples is recognised as