Three kinds of load
diagramIntrinsic (the task's own difficulty), extraneous (bad design), germane (effort that builds schemas). Your job: cut extraneous, manage intrinsic, protect germane.
Journey dashboard
Day 11 / 60Week 2 · Learning ScienceLesson
Cognitive Load Theory
Learning goal
Identify and remove unnecessary load from a learning experience.
Estimated time
30 minutes · self-paced
Warm-up
Why is it hard to follow a recipe while someone reads the news at you?
Main lesson
Working memory is tiny
Roughly four chunks at a time. Every decorative animation, split-attention layout and unexplained acronym spends that budget.
- Chunk content into steps
- Put labels on the picture, not in a legend
- Remove background music behind narration
- Fade worked examples into independent practice
Expertise reversal
exampleWhat helps novices (worked examples, heavy scaffolding) slows experts down. Design for the actual audience.
Examples from practice
- — A safety diagram with labels moved onto the image, cutting error rates in practice tasks.
Interactive quiz
Reflection
Where do you overload learners with your own writing style?
Daily challenge
Take one busy slide and remove 50% of its elements without losing meaning.
Portfolio task
Add the slide before/after to your 'Before / After' portfolio page.
AI design tools
Ten assistants for this lesson
AI Mentor
Instructional design questions only
Hi! I'm your ID Mentor. Ask me anything about cognitive load theory — or instructional design in general.