Working memory is the bottleneck

Icebreaker

The Learning Chain Match-Up

Learning runs through stages. Most of them are invisible until one of them fails.

1. 1Pair up with six cards: attention, working memory, prior knowledge, encoding, retrieval and application.
2. 2Introduce yourselves, and each give one example of something you learned well or badly.
3. 3Put the cards in an order you can both defend, and add a real example to each stage.
4. 4Join another pair and compare. Where your orders differ, work out why.

Working on your own? Lay the cards out for one thing you learned recently and one thing that never stuck. The stage where they part company is the one to look at.

Icebreaker

Signal, Static and Sense

The same idea, delivered three ways, costs the reader three different amounts.

1. 1Set up three stations with the same idea at each. Signal has it clear and well spaced. Static buries it in jargon and clutter. Sense asks you to connect it to something you already know.
2. 2Three minutes at each. Rewrite Signal in one sentence. Underline what makes Static hard, then fix it. At Sense, finish the line: it made sense when.
3. 3Regroup and sort what people say under three headings: attention, working memory, prior knowledge.
4. 4Close with two sentences each. Learning gets harder when. Learning sticks better when.

Working on your own? Take something you wrote for learners and produce all three versions of it. Whichever one your current material resembles is the finding.

Icebreaker

Scenario Corners: Best Way to Learn It

Same task, same room, four different first moves. All of them reasonable.

1. 1Label four corners: watch it, hear it explained, read the steps, try it out.
2. 2Put a low-stakes task to the room. A new app, a piece of kit to assemble, a process to follow.
3. 3Go to the corner you would start in, meet the others there and say why that one.
4. 4Take one spokesperson from each corner and hear all four, then run it again with a harder task.

Working on your own? Pick your corner, then deliberately learn the next new thing from a different one. Note what it costs you and what it gives you.

Journaling

From Exposure to Learning

Working memory is the bottleneck. Every design decision either respects it or spends it.

1. 1Write what has to happen for learning to occur, and why exposure on its own is not enough.
2. 2Define intrinsic, extraneous and germane load in your own words, then say which one training should cut first.
3. 3Describe a time learning felt harder than it needed to. Was it the content, the delivery, or both?
4. 4Finish with five principles you would design by, each with what it would look like in practice.

Working with a group? Write first, then pool the five principles. Twenty of them with the duplicates removed is a design standard the group wrote itself.

Problem solving

Fix the Breakdown

Fast talking, dense slides, every step at once, then straight into the task.

1. 1Say where learning breaks down: attention, working memory, integration, encoding, or several together.
2. 2Pick three design decisions that caused it, and explain what each one does to the load a learner is carrying.
3. 3Redesign it with four changes. One to cut overload, one to reach prior knowledge, one to hold attention, one to build confidence.
4. 4The content stays the same throughout. Say why motivation is the wrong diagnosis here.

Working with a group? Diagnose alone, then compare where each person located the breakdown. People tend to spot the stage they struggle with themselves.

Worksheet

Two Designs, One Set of Limits

Working memory holds very little. Every design decision either respects that or ignores it.

1. 1Read Approach A. A new process is introduced (30-min explanation). The slides have full paragraphs, technical terms and several steps together. Learners listen until the end, then start a task straight away. No example during explanation, no recap, and no check of prior knowledge.
2. 2Read Approach B. The same process is introduced in short sections. Each one opens with why it matters and carries one example. Learners are asked what they already know before moving on. The trainer pauses between stages, sums up, and runs a short practice before starting the next part.
3. 3Compare them: which one holds attention at the start, and why; where working memory is more likely to overload; how prior knowledge is used, or left alone; what is likely to reach long-term memory.
4. 4Critique both. What does covering it in one pass protect? How can learners look fine and retain almost nothing? Which difficulty does the sectioning remove? What does it cost, and what does it assume of the trainer?
5. 5Make a judgement. Exposure to content is not the same as learning. Argue that from the chapter, then recommend two changes to the weaker design that leave the content untouched. Finish the sentence: Two people in the same session respond differently because…