Outside of the existing learning technology and tech that continues to be developed, one of the things I find most fascinating within education, learning, and instructional design, is recognition of and use of, the most direct path to facilitate learner understanding and the key to facilitating transfer to long term memory.  A podcast I listened to today added another “ah ha” moment to my design repertoire, as I look back I feel like I have seen this in action, it registers as relevant, believable, and real world to me.  I thought I’d share some of the information contained within the podcast with my fellow graduate learners and others who have a passion for understanding human learning, and those who seek to understand learning at its core.

Connie Malamed, a favorite learning design podcaster of mine, recently interviewed John Sweller, an Emeritus Professor at the University of South Wales Sydney.  Their discussion centered around cognitive load and effectively reaching the person you are trying to transfer information to.  I have to say that long before she mentioned it at the end of the podcast, I had thought to myself ‘wow this is powerful stuff from a teaching, learning, and design perspective.’  So although I’ll shed some light on the conversation here I’ll also note that you’re missing out if you don’t dial it up and listen in to the E Learning Coach, episode 55, located here.  Whether you’re an instructor, a designer, parent, coach or any one tasked with communicating information, even in a presentation, this definitely has something for you so listen up!

The interview centers around cognitive load and transfer to long-term memory.  Have you ever found yourself in a class or presentation and wondered, why am I just not getting this… why it is not sinking in… why can’t I remember what was on the Power Point a few slides ago that seemed so important.  If you’ve never been there you’re a lucky one of the few, if you have, the information below might prompt some tips and tricks that will save you when the person presenting is blissfully unaware as to why the information they’re flooding you with isn’t sticking in your mind.  And if you are an instructor, instructional designer, or presenter, this is gold.  Here, you will find some of the high points, but ultimately my advice is go listen, go read, go educate yourself.  Then evaluate and see if it rings true for you.

Connie introduces the podcast by stating that learning professionals and product designer’s need to understand how people learn to be most effective.  Unfortunately many people don’t clearly understand the way we learn, knowledge that contains key information which, when used, gives us the best chance of leveraging it to assist us as we target the goal of facilitating learning and transfer of information to long-term memory.  While explaining key points within his theory of cognitive load, Professor Sweller introduces the concepts of primary and secondary knowledge as the underlying keys to facilitating learning and retention. 

He explains primary knowledge as knowledge we naturally acquire without an instructor, like learning our mother tongue from those around us as a young child.  This information can be tremendously complex, however we acquire it relatively easily.  Secondary knowledge is the stuff that we learn in a more formal setting, like school, where someone is transferring the information to us with the intent to teach us something we are either interested in, or something that will serve us well in the future, like reading, arithmetic, etc.  Although we are quite capable of learning secondary knowledge it requires a conscious learning process and the information is often more difficult to process, for example learning to read and write.

His reflections in the discussion focus on secondary knowledge and our educational system, which was constructed as the primary means by which secondary knowledge is transferred to students in an effort to educate them.  Instructional design also falls into the category of transferring secondary knowledge through instruction.   He would argue that this process of knowledge transfer is most effective when the limitations of working memory, transfer to long-term memory, and the effect of cognitive load are taken into account.  This requires an understanding of the framework of how we learn, or as Sweller calls it our cognitive architecture. He goes on to define working memory as the things we are conscious of as we process information.  Working memory has a couple of aspects, its capacity and the duration of time that we are able to hold working information in our memories as we process.

He continues by noting that 2-4 elements at a time is all of the information we are capable of dealing with when learning something new, processing concepts, or solving a problem.  To compound complexity as we consider instructional methods, design, and content, we also need to take into account the fact that we are only able to hold information in working memory for about 20 seconds.  Very appropriately he asks, “how do we function under those circumstances?” This is where long-term memory comes to the rescue.  Thankfully it has no known limits of capacity or duration, therefore if we can facilitate the transfer of new information to long-term memory it can then easily be drawn upon by the learner at any point, and without effort while not imposing on the limitations of working memory.

Working memory is limited when dealing with novel information, it’s effectively unlimited when dealing with processed, stored information that we get from long-term memory. That is critical because it tells us why we are engaging in instruction. It tells us we engage in instruction in order to get information into long-term memory.

John Sweller

At this point I was thinking back to Julie Dirksen’s “Design for How People Learn”, wherein she references introducing new knowledge in a number of different ways to create a space where people can relate the information to an experience, and/or, process it in a number of different ways.  This gives them multiple pathways to process and classify information in order to facilitate transfer to long-term memory and thereby provides the best opportunity for the learner to most effectively recall it when needed.  That in turn took me back to the words of one of my piano teacher’s who would encourage me to read the music, memorize the music, play with the metronome, play with my eyes closed!  Whether she knew it or not she was creating multiple paths for transfer to long-term memory and it worked!  Now I can add ‘play with the recorded CD’ to the list of practice tools I suggest to my students.

The discussion continues with the definition of cognitive load as that thing imposed on working memory when we are asked to process multiple elements of novel information, or information that is more complex and requires thinking about multiple things at once.  However armed with an understanding of the impact of new information on working memory the instructor or designer can account for these factors and introduce material in a way that is more easily digested while decreasing cognitive load and facilitating transfer to long-term memory. Ultimately it’s about finding a path from introduction and attention getting, to exposure in various ways in an effort to help facilitate understanding and transfer to long-term memory.  As Sweller references, there’s something to that old saying that the more you know, the easier it is to learn new things.  Since there is no impact on the limited capacity of working memory when drawing from long-term memory, knowledge stored in long-term memory lessens cognitive load and allows the learner to place more emphasis on understanding and shelving the new concepts while facilitating the transfer of new information to long-term memory. 

How do you prompt the “ah ha” moment, make the light bulb come on, and help facilitate the learner with transfer to long-term memory?  As you map your learning plan or design keep these things in mind:

• Working memory can handle short simple facts, of up to 7 plus or minus 1, while memorizing rotely.
• The limitations of short-term memory is limited when it comes to new/complex information, 2-4 pieces of new is the maximum
• The value of presenting information with the intent to offer multiple paths to exposure, understanding and shelving of information to facilitate transfer to long-term memory.

As you approach your next challenge to communicate new information are you ready to embrace and implement the keys to reducing cognitive load and facilitating transfer to long-term memory? If so, I challenge you to engage!