October, 2020

This is a text that I’ve seen repeatedly referenced online as an important introduction to CLT. After reading it, I’m not convinced that this is the best place to start with learning about CLT. It’s the introduction/editorial for an issue of Educational Psychologist and gives a broad overview of the state of CLT and its relationship with instructional design in 2003. It briefly defines key elements such as intrinsic cognitive load, extraneous cognitive load, germane cognitive load, working memory, expertise reversal effect and schemas. These are my reading notes on the article: “By simultaneously considering the structure of information and…

Generative Learning in Action is refreshing after the heavy doses of Rosenshine I’ve been consuming recently. There are two aspects to the GL approach I find particularly engaging: it approaches learning from the learner’s perspective rather than that of the instructor (the “flip-side” that the Ensers repeated point out) plus it’s a constructivist theory which insists that learning is mediated through the prior experiences and knowledge of the learner (it’s great to see Piaget referenced these days!). The theory leans heavily on Mayer’s SOI (select-organise-integrate) model of memory which is presented early in the book. It also draws on Cognitive…