When faced with challenging thinking tasks accompanied by a feeling of uncertainty, people often prefer to opt out (e.g., replying "I don't know", seeking advice) over giving low-confidence responses. In professions with high-stakes decisions (e.g., judges, medical practitioners), opting out is generally seen as preferable to making…

There are numerous reasons why students with disabilities struggle in school. A key reason is professionals in the field may not pay enough attention to students' overwhelmed cognitive capacity. Cognitive load theory explains that all humans have limited capacity at any given time to use their auditory, visual, and tactile inputs (independently or…

Cognitive load theory's incorporation of evolutionary perspectives has generated several instructional designs based on movement, including the tracing effect, occurring when learners benefit from explicit instructions to trace out specific elements of lesson materials with the index finger. Historical descriptions of children's tracing behaviours…

Over the past decade, geospatial technologies have emerged as a tool for developing spatial reasoning and cognitive processes. While the foundational Learning to Think Spatially report from the National Research Center (2006) launched research into the use of geospatial technologies in isolation, more recently, cloud-based simulation software have…

This paper provides a theory-based introduction to instructional design that can be used in pedagogy seminars, training sessions, professional development events, colloquiums, and/or programmatic guidebooks. It includes a series of activities designed to assist instructors in the classes they teach. The exercises combine theory with practice to…

Within the fields of learning design, instructional systems and educational psychology, cognitive load has been discussed and debated for a number of years. The impact of course designs on learning process is still questioned, and how we learn continues to be an intriguing question. The fields of working memory (WM) and cognitive load (CL) have…

This design case presents an early career designer's reflection on the design and design narrative from an asynchronous video tutorial, reflecting on the unexpected obstacles of the process and unintended consequences of certain design decisions. The first author designed a tutorial for a non-academic department of a large southeastern university.…

This manuscript presents an interview with John Sweller, Fred Paas, and Jeroen van Merrienboer about cognitive load theory. It presents the views of these main founders of the theory on the progress from the first major publication on the theory in 1998 (Sweller, Van Merrienboer, & Paas, "Educational Psychology Review," 10(3),…

Cognitive load theory was introduced in the 1980s as an instructional design theory based on several uncontroversial aspects of human cognitive architecture. Our knowledge of many of the characteristics of working memory, long-term memory and the relations between them had been well-established for many decades prior to the introduction of the…

This article describes "seductive details" as attention-grabbing, irrelevant pieces of information. They can be words, illustrations, photographs, animations, narrations, videos, or sounds. Studying the effects of seductive details is a growing area of research--but it is far enough along to merit teachers' interest: there are over 20…

"The Cognitive Challenges of Effective Teaching," by Chew and Cerbin (2021) outlines a framework of nine cognitive challenges to student learning. The framework can help economic educators better design and describe new ideas for teaching in economics. In this article, the author highlights and expands upon ideas that are particularly…

Introductory programming courses (CS1) are difficult for novices. Inspired by "Problem solving followed by instruction" and "Productive Failure" approaches, we define an original "necessity-driven" learning design. Students are put in an apparently well-known situation, but this time they miss an essential ingredient…

In recent years, a large number of learning management sites (LMs) have emerged in the higher education sector, but these systems are generally not well-maintained. Most of the time the burden falls upon the lecturers to populate and maintain the content on these sites. The problem is, most of these online environments are built around complex…

The rise of online courses has created an ongoing demand for instructional designers in higher education. Collaboration between faculty and instructional designers in developing online engineering courses has therefore increased. Potential challenges during the collaboration can be addressed when faculty and instructional designers have a mutual…

Adult learners acquire information in a method that comes naturally: self-directed, in that they seek information as problems present themselves, connected to a vast amount of information and various social networks, and in a timely manner. Timely, in regards to when they need the information, when they have a moment to pay attention, and within…