The Surprising Reason Students Tune Out Lectures

Ever noticed that your students don't seem to retain most of what you share in a lecture? Ever noticed that even when it's well-crafted and highly engaging, students seem to tune out at some point? It turns out there's a surprising scientific reason for this. It has nothing to do with our ability to convey information and everything to do with how much information students can handle at any given time. Our brains can only handle so much information. This is explained by something called Cognitive Load Theory. In this video, we go beyond just the lecture and into other areas of teaching to explore how to reduce cognitive load in the classroom.

[@spencereducation]

Ugh! I have a typo in this. I misspelled exercise. It's always been a hard word for me to spell.

[@creativityinlearning]

I'm so glad it't not just me.

[@patriciathalassinos2034]

Was going to connect Cognitive Load Theory to Cummins Quadrants during the ESL portion of our next middle school faculty meeting Love the video and all the research references! Thank you!

[@susanstabbler5919]

Hey John. Great Video. I love how you model what you teach by breaking down a lesson on cognitive load into small meaningful bites. I would love to know HOW you made this video as in which digital tools did you use. Keep sharing your wisdom!

[@shaziahabbasi7566]

So well explained and elaborated through some brilliant examples, thank you for sharing this.

[@sunandapandey2714]

great! loved it. thanks for sharing!

[@shalinisinha2337]

Excellent video, John. I just love how you simplify difficult concepts! Thank you for posting such informative videos.

[@spencereducation]

Glad it was helpful!

[@DuyNguyen-ey9hz]

Thanks for your wonderful video. I watched a video by Justin Sung and he said that our cognitive ability can be improved with practice. So I wonder if the teaching technique in the book "Teaching Common Sense" reduces the cognitive load of our brains. I mean that by using the technique taught in the book, my ability to hold a large amount of information diminishes over time.

[@angelinevedhaswaminathan2216]

crisp clear presentation

[@spencereducation]

Thanks a lot!

[@YouilAushana]

I was abused as a child and lived in terror. I was a child prodigy in sports and have a high IQ. I can definitely say this is true.

[@cherryblossom8061]

Thank you so much for making and sharing this video!! So much valuable information packed into 6 minutes. I'll be revisitng this video often to take notes and share it around.

[@spencereducation]

Thanks! I'm glad it resonated.

[@amywangner2221]

So important! Great video.

[@spencereducation]

Thanks for watching!

[@timkohl6451]

This is spot on. Thank you.

[@spencereducation]

Glad it resonated!

[@jenniferrider6880]

Thanks for making a video on this very important topic!

[@spencereducation]

Glad you liked it!

[@traciebosket]

Excellent video!

[@spencereducation]

Thank you very much!

[@traciebosket]

@@spencereducation I am going to add it to a UDL course I am developing. It is clear, and gives plenty of examples (which faculty appreciate!)

[@peterkuzma6091]

First, thanks for the hilarious phone number Easter Egg - this Gen Xer sees you and thanks you :^) Second, and more professionally salient: How does (or should) this theory impact the current practice of block-scheduling Literacy and Math instruction, especially at early elementary levels? I've struggled (and argued about) the need to strategically break up learning time and return in intentional ways to concepts, skill-building, and practice for younger students, rather than schedule 90- or 100-minute blocks of sacrosanct time for one subject. Thanks again for all you do 👍

[@boossersgarage3239]

perfect example here.. I lasted 2 and half minutes before I started tuning out.. gone at 3

[@spencereducation]

Sorry it wasn't helpful. I try to make my videos engaging and highly visual.

[@elagecgeldi9843]

👏👏👏

[@spencereducation]

Thanks!

[@mirkojevtic988]

I like the points made in the video, but its fundamentals are off. Sweller, when he introduced CLT, basically did it because of the more and more instruction coming in a form of those different activities that are extraneous to learning, taking away our cognitive capacities to deal with instruction's inherent cognitive load. In a series of experiments, he showed just that. There is an interesting discussion to be had about whether some of those activities actually improve learning even though they increase cognitive load (germane CL). But, video like this in inaccurate oversimplification.

[@spencereducation]

I explored this question a little more in-depth in this blog post: spencerauthor.com/pbl-cognitive-load/ While I value Sweller's research, I fundamentally disagree with him on the idea that all extraneous cognitive load is detrimental to learning. Part of this comes down to the larger question of "What do we mean by learning?" If this includes certain so-called soft skills or SEL skills or aspects of self-management, then learning to self-manage certain types of extraneous load can be helpful. In other words, the question of what is germane CL is a fascinating one.