This week’s class focused on the concepts of learning design, looking at different technology integration models, such as the SAMR Model, the TPAK Framework, and Constructive Alignment. Each of these models outlines ways that we can integrate technology into our classrooms and provide us as future teachers with resources to help prevent cognitive overload in our students. I found the constructive alignment chart to be especially helpful as it helped me to see the bigger picture of a lesson or project outline.

Something else we talked about this week was the idea of cognitive overload and dual cognition in the context of multimedia. The concept of cognitive overload is where I would like to focus for the remainder of today’s post.

This video we watched in class is around 18 minutes long; however, it conveys the idea of cognitive load well if you want to watch a more in-depth video explaining these concepts.

Ray explains cognitive overload using an analogy of a glass of water; the water is the information that we are “pouring in” to the student, and the glass is the student’s working memory. “The more the glass fills up, the more strain on our cognitive resources,” says Ray. When the glass fills up all the way, the water simply pours out and the glass cannot hold the water any longer.

What I really liked about this video is how it highlighted how we, as teachers, can hopefully use multimedia without causing cognitive overload in our students. Although it seems like common sense, I had not thought about this concept, nor had I thought about the ways that multimedia could cause such an overload, especially since the bulk of our courses so far had highlighted the importance of multimedia in education. This video provided an excellent resource for me that I will continue to think about as I eventually start teaching students.