Instructional designers and learning architects tiptoe a delicate balance in creating content that motivates learning and, ultimately, comprehension. Understanding a full range of methodology, learners, and theory are just a few of the barriers designers work through each time they analyze content and develop a course.
Emotion and Cognition
Have you ever tried to take a class when you were overly tired, sick, or had family problems? If you don’t remember, it’s probably because of the enormous role emotion plays in your cognitive realm and your capacity to learn. Negative and positive emotions attract the same within the learning process. Think about the best meal you have ever had; can you remember specific details about that memory, the taste, texture, your company, perhaps what the special event was? YES! The same with a horrific meal experience, you definitely will not forget.
Positive emotions such as joy, pleasure, happiness, and love generate the ‘Happy Factor.’ This ‘Happy Factor’ also needs to be intentionally created within learning. As instructional designers, we need to create a curriculum that positively connects our learners to the material to maximize instruction and understanding. Positive emotions such as joy, pleasure, happiness, and love generate the ‘Happy Factor.’ This ‘Happy Factor’ also needs to be intentionally created within learning. As instructional designers, we need to create a curriculum that positively connects our learners to the material to maximize instruction and understanding.
Cognitive Load Theory
We have all attended training or classes where the material is ‘JUST TOO MUCH’! Where your brain says NOPE, NO MORE. According to Cognitive Load Theory, the human brain can only do so many things at once, and we need to be aware of how many things we are asking it to do or the maximum information that our brain can take. When designing instruction and working with our subject matter experts, we often are put in the position where we are consulted that every little detail of the training is of the highest importance.
We have three different ways that our brain processes memory. First, our sensory memory, where we experience the learning, then on to our working memory where we reinforce the experience, and finally over to our long-term memory where the experience is cemented in. Yet, our brains can only process 5-7 things at a time. So, as instructional designers, we must find the balance between cognitive dissonance, where the learner is challenged to think, and cognitive overload, where it is just ‘TOO MUCH.’ This theory is why our analysis phase is critical for us to understand our learners and their expertise level and the true objectives or desired outcomes of the training we are trying to create.
Interweaving
Let’s talk about how we can reduce the cognitive load and maximize our efforts. As learning experts, we have many tools in our toolbox; one which is essential to building up learning and reducing the cognitive overload is a process called ‘Interweaving.’ You may have heard of it, or perhaps heard of ‘scaffolding’ the learning process. No matter who your audience is, they have to relate the new learning to something already housed in their long-term memory (back to that ‘understand your learners’ part). Utilizing what is already cemented in, we start with a foundation of understanding and relate the new material to the familiarity, creating this interwoven series of cognitive connections.
The timing of how we introduce material is also essential. According to the primacy and recency effect, our brain recognizes and remembers material at the start and completion of learning. While we know that all of our training material is important, when we design, we need to design for maximum understanding. By placing our foundational biggest take-aways for learners essentially at the bookends of our training, as instructional designers we can support and maximize the cognitive capacity of our audience.
