Overloaded Brains Can’t Learn – How to Reduce Cognitive Load

I’ll bet you can think of a presentation or class you attended where you felt like you were drinking from a fire hose. Can you remember why you felt that way?  Was the presenter crashing through slide after slide dense with bullet points? Did they talk about so many things that you couldn’t figure out what the most important points were?

As teachers, we sometimes feel compelled to “cover a lot of material” in a short time, but the fire hose analogy is a good one here.  If someone aims a fire hose at your face, you’re not going to be able to swallow much water!  The same thing happens when too much information is aimed at a learner’s brain. Instead of “covering a lot of material” it’s as if you didn’t teach them anything at all.  Might as well have stayed home and watched Tiger King.

Strategy: Reducing Cognitive Load

Reducing Cognitive Load happens when we design learning so that the most important information about a concept is presented to students without distractions.  For example, if we show a slide with a single bullet point, instead of a slide with 10, we reduce cognitive load, and it will be easier for them to process and remember that idea.

How it works

Cognitive Load refers to the idea that the human brain can only focus on a few pieces of information at one time before it becomes overloaded.  When too much information is presented at once, our working memory can’t hold it all, and some will be forgotten. Limiting the pieces of information we are asking students to focus on at one time reduces cognitive load, and helps them process and remember the most important points. 

Anything in your presentation that is not directly related to the point you are making at the time can negatively affect cognitive load.  For example, including a long list of bullet points on a single slide, or including a picture that is not directly related to the key idea.  Even decorative graphics can take up space in your students’ working memory!

To reduce cognitive load, keep your students’ available mental resources focused on the key points you want them to process and remember, and remove distractions like unrelated information and images.

How you can use it

To reduce your students’ cognitive load, make sure what you are presenting is pared down to the key information they need to understand each point. This could include showing slides with only one bullet point, or an image that directly relates to that point.  In the college courses I teach, I often present slides with a white background and black text to reduce the need for students to process extra information (like fancy graphics).

Another way to reduce cognitive load is to keep the format of your materials consistent.  If the format of slides, handouts, or even the order in which you present information is consistent, your students don’t have to use precious working memory finding important content.

Example for a live presentation

In a live presentation, use slides that include only the words and images needed to present the point you are making at the moment.  Remove excessive decorative graphics. When you explain the concept, your students will be listening to you instead of trying to interpret a complicated slide!

Instead of something like this:

Use something like this:

Example for an online course

In an online course, much of your content might be in the form of videos.  One way to reduce your students’ cognitive load is to have the background in the video stay simple and consistent throughout your course. Each time a video is played, the familiar setting will allow your students to focus on what you are saying instead of what’s behind you.

Another strategy for an online course is to set up each lesson in the same format. For example, each lesson could be structured like this:

Lesson 1 Topic: Reducing Cognitive Load

Lesson 1 Introduction: Before you watch today’s video about how to improve your students’ learning by reducing cognitive load, try to think of a time when you watched a presentation that made you feel like you were “drinking from a firehose”. In the space below, write two aspects of that presentation that made it seem overwhelming:

Lesson 1 Video:

Lesson 1 Wrap-up Quiz:

Select all of the strategies below that would help reduce your students’ cognitive load during learning:

1. Limit the number of bullet points on presentation slides
2. Avoid images not directly related to the key idea
3. Don’t use distracting decorative graphics
4. Wear a funny costume related to an upcoming holiday

(Bonus points if you identified any of the other good teaching strategies I used in this example.  Did you notice the prediction question at the beginning, or that the quiz question at the end that made use of retrieval practice?)

Summing it up

• Reducing Cognitive Load happens when we design learning so that only the most important information is presented to students at one time.
• It works because when too many pieces of information are presented at once, our working memory can’t hold it all, and some information is lost. Limiting what we ask students to focus on at one time reduces cognitive load, and helps them process and remember the most important points.
• To reduce cognitive load, try limiting the number of bullet points on slides, and avoiding images and decorative graphics that aren’t directly related to the key point. You can also reduce cognitive load by making the format of your materials consistent.

I hope you found some helpful tips in this week’s post. Leave a comment below and let me know if you’ve ever used strategies like this before!