Nicky

7 min read

Unlock the secret science I use to make great teaching resources

Do you know about dual coding? Mayer’s theory? Working memory or even cognitive load?

What does all this mean and how can you create teaching resources that will really help your students learn?

Creating effective teaching resources isn’t just about the pretty pictures and nice colours, it’s also about the content and how you are using it.

Let’s start off easy.

Working memory

There are two types of ways a human retains information to memory: long-term and working.

Think of working memory as a library, at a library you may only borrow a few books at a time; these books will be the parts of the working memory we are accessing and needed at that moment.

It’s the small (current) part of our brain we use when we are doing something.

Different people have different capacities in their working memory. The average person holds around 3 or 4 pieces of new information at one time.

Long term memory is a phrase many are more familiar with. It is the part of our brain that is larger and considered “semi-permanent”. I say semi-permanent because our brains are constantly reorganising themselves depending on what is deemed important enough to remember.

Going back to the library analogy, the books we didn’t take out are our long-term memory. They will always be in the library, we know they’re there and can access them at any point, we just don’t need them at that very moment in time.

So, in relation to learning new skills and knowledge, we need to get the working memory a permanent spot into the long-term memory library. Preferably a spot close to the front so it doesn’t gather dust and get forgotten about at the back.

But how do we do this?

Chart showing how we forget data over time

Learning is a long process, it takes time for it to transfer into a long-term memory, but some of this learning can be forgotten about over a short space of time. Its suggested that only around 50% of new knowledge taught is retained in just ONE HOUR!

With students only retaining around 20% of new information after a week.

However, it has been said that revisiting taught information helps students retain more of this new information.

Chart showing how data is retained if revisited multiple times

It’s important to not just revisit the information but encourage interactions with it. Try

a quiz,
a variety of different tasks that could let students practise their new skills,
summarise learning at the end of the lesson or even
just a quick recap of previous lessons at the start of a new one.

Cognitive load

Cognitive load was introduced in the 1980’s by educational psychologist John Sweller. He believed the best learning environment for humans was when their cognitive capacity was taken into account.

The Cognitive Load Theory tells us that we may only be able to process a certain amount of new information at any one time. Processing new knowledge leads to a “cognitive load” in our working memory.

Sweller suggested that a person’s working memory has its limits, teachers of a subject such as computer science should take this into account in an attempt to not overload their students.

If a computing teacher were to overload their students cognitive capacity then there are risks of students:

becoming stressed,
being unable to focus,
not understanding new skills and knowledge,
misunderstanding concepts and getting confused,
being unable to effectively transfer learning into long-term memory.

There are three types of cognitive load we need to consider when teaching.

Extraneous Cognitive Load

Unnecessary or distracting information that doesn’t enhance learning. So don’t include things that aren’t necessary.

Intrinsic Cognitive Load

How difficult or complex a subject matter is when compared to any previous knowledge and the skills of the learner. So don’t throw your students in on the deep end.

Germane Cognitive Load

The effort needed to relate to and process new knowledge. One example is creating diagrams and flowcharts to make complex learning easier; it also helps the learner remember more of the important elements.

Dual coding

In 1971, Allan Paivio proposed that our brains use both verbal and visual elements to process new understanding which is more commonly known as dual coding theory.

Psychologists have since identified that dual coding is one of the most effective learning strategies for improving long-term memory.

The basis of Paivio’s theory is that we have two cognitive processing systems that are used when learning new skills and knowledge.

Verbal processing system

This is responsible for processing language, for example spoken or written word.

Visual Processing system

This is responsible for image-based information, for example images, diagrams or graphics.

Giving the learner both systems at the same time allows them two ways to remember the information.

This also improves your learner engagement and knowledge retention.

So, maybe pretty pictures do help in your teaching resources!

Example 1	Example 2

By using the image of the robot in example 1, students will be able to remember what they’re taught easier than they would in example 2. This will then allow them to transfer this new knowledge into their long-term memory.

But! Don’t forget that you don’t want to overload the learners’ cognitive load so don’t make the images too distracting!

Mayor’s multimedia learning theory

Richard Mayer first developed his theory of multimedia learning in 1997 and has developed it to now to include many principles.

There is the Coherence principle. Even though it can be tempting to include extra information in your teachings to “spice it up”, this may actually do the opposite and distract the learner from the main goals.

The Signalling principle states that learners need to actually know what they need to pay attention to, especially when there is a lot of information in front of them.

Then you have the Redundancy principle; too much is too much. Learners learn better when a presentation is simply spoken words and graphics. Of course, the presentation still needs to be accessible, but I’ll go more in depth with this later.

The Spatial contiguity principle. Mayor suggested that it needs to be clear what text goes with what graphic. For example, if a computer science teacher is using a pie chart, she should label the chart individually instead of having a key off to the side. Keeping the text as close to the graphic as possible!

The Temporal contiguity principle believes that to have the most effect, text and images should be shown simultaneously.

The Segmenting principle states that leaning in smaller chunks will have a better effect of retention as opposed to learning everything all at once.

And finally, the Pre-training principle; by defining key terms or concepts early, before the main explanations, you can reduce the cognitive load for your learners.

How do I use these learning theories in my new teaching resources?

As I am currently revising and updating my teaching resources, it’s the perfect opportunity to include some of these theories into my own work!

In particular I’m only going to include pertinent information and getting rid of the extra “nice to know” elements. I’m also going to reduce what I believe are distracting graphics, as well as adding in signalling to help focus the students to key areas of the screen during their computer science lessons.

Alongside these I will be telling pupils when we are moving into a new section in class and ensuring related text and images appear close together using the spatial contiguity principle; also making sure that items are animated accurately so related text and images appear together.

It will also be effective if I split the learning into small chunks in my teaching resources, highlighting and explaining keywords earlier on in the lessons. To ensure students aren’t facing a cognitive load during crucial parts of the computer teaching, I’ll highlight keywords they encounter for the first time in the main explanation.

Accessibility

My youngest son hated school as he struggled with his dyslexia. Because of this, I’ve always been very conscious of ensuring my resources are dyslexia friendly.

By doing so I have developed resources that are not only suitable for dyslexic students but also for many other learners with a whole variety of learning preferences.

Making resources accessible is not purely about catering for people with specific learning difficulties but also for those who simply prefer learning in different ways.

Some of the most obvious adaptations I have made are:

using a dyslexic-friendly font
ensuring the spacing between characters and words is sufficient to reduce the effect of letters being transposed
altering the background to a single colour of pale yellow and the text to a dark blue which is less jarring than black text on a white background
not using underline and italics
avoiding the use of capitals unless it is necessary
using a much larger heading text and a different colour background to differentiate it from the rest of the paragraphs
sticking to left alignment wherever possible
avoiding long, text heavy paragraphs
using bullet points for lists but taking out the bullet points for normal paragraphs
giving clear instructions

Other things I include which cater for more general learning preferences:

including alt-text descriptions on images to help with screen readers
including captions on videos
not relying purely on colour, but also adding additional signage (for instance in a bar chart using pattern as well as colour for the different categories)
incorporating lots of opportunities to practise and reinforce the learning
using a “teach to the top” technique to avoid pupils being underchallenged and allowing all pupils to learn without limitations.

Summery

Creating high-quality teaching resources is no longer as simple as cranking up PowerPoint and filling it with as much colour, animations and “fun” as possible.

There is a serious science that needs to be taken into account to really help the learners make the most of the resources.

Sometimes taking elements out is as important as putting elements in, to avoid cognitive overload and to help transfer new skills and knowledge into the long-term memory.

If you want to see some of my new style resources here are a few I have already uploaded onto TES and TpT.