Working memory is the bottleneck in learning, so instruction must strip extraneous load.
Sweller's finding that worked examples beat problem-solving for novices, because the search for a solution consumes the capacity needed to learn the method. It inverts a good deal of discovery-learning practice.
In practice
- A training course opens with a live exercise before teaching the method, and the trainees spend the hour searching rather than learning.
- An onboarding document explains the architecture, the deployment process and the on-call rota on day one, and none of it is retained.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- Theories of teaching, and what schools are for