Teaching with Technology

Cognitive load theory (CLT) is based on the concept that many courses require students to learn and understand more information than is needed for understanding of the intended course material. For example, a course on the use of technology in higher education should focus on how technology would be used and not on the nitty-gritty of how applications are developed or communicate with servers. Only information necessary for the delivery of the actual course topic should be presented for students to internalize, e.g., how to connect to or maintain content in an application as opposed to the programming techniques that make it run.

CLT defines three load types: Intrinsic, extraneous, and germane. Intrinsic load is the actual course content – the actual subject of the course. Material needed by the students to use the course content is considered extraneous.  For example, the ability to use tools like a word processor or graphics editor are important for success in a course on technology in higher education, but not the basis for that course. Germane cognitive load is used to describe how students know things – being able to read and write coherently, for example.

The article discusses the redesign of a course on computer programming taught to mechanical engineering (ME) students. This course had a historically high drop-out and failure rate because students felt they were being forced to learn material irrelevant to their career needs. By restructuring the course delivery so that programming was demonstrated as a tool to facilitate use of important ME concepts in real world applications, student performance improved substantially.

I selected this article initially because I had been part of several discussions with faculty over how they taught their technology courses. During these discussions I tried to identify ways that my staff could reduce the need for students to learn too much unrelated to the actual course goal so they could succeed. For example, students learning web design techniques did not need to learn web server management, however some faculty requests for systems to support those classes resulted in students doing such extraneous work. I felt that this article did not sufficiently cover the use of CLT to support its arguments.

However, the article did include some other empirical data that I found very interesting. The instructor described how he used various distance education technologies to deliver the course and to interact with the students. Through use of technologies designed to support synchronous and asynchronous learning, he discovered empirically that technology can leverage his own effectiveness with more students than is possible in a traditional class setting. He initially used a product used for synchronous learning to interact with students, but then realized that certain topics could be covered more effectively using pre-recorded carefully written demonstrations and lectures. This left him more time to interact with students on topics requiring extra work.

He intends further research to prove this concept to himself and I will be interested to see the results. We have seen similar results in my school’s distance education offerings and I would like to see more data in support of that paradigm change.

Impelluso, T. J. (2009). Assessing Cognitive Load Theory to Improve Student Learning for Mechanical Engineers. American Journal of Distance Education, 23(4), 179. doi: 10.1080/08923640903294569.

Jonathan