Late Show with Cognitive Load Theory: Top 10 Ways My Teaching is Going to Change
Dylan Wiliam has said that the most important thing most teachers don’t yet know, but should, is cognitive load theory. I believe he’s right.
It’s a simple case of I didn’t know what I didn’t know until I knew I didn’t know it. Like many teachers, I was chugging along, planning lessons, trying new strategies, reflecting often, but without a clear understanding of how students actually learn. Once I encountered cognitive load theory, it felt like putting on glasses for the first time. Suddenly, things I had sensed for years but couldn’t articulate came into focus. I started to see why certain lessons fell flat, why some students struggled, and why even my best laid plans sometimes led to confusion rather than clarity.
That moment, when you realize there’s a better, more research-informed way based on the science of how we learn, is at the heart of my ongoing pursuit of effectiveness in teaching. We grow as educators by uncovering those pesky blind spots and being willing to rethink what we thought we knew.
This post is my attempt to summarize what I now understand, what I didn’t know before, about how our minds learn best, and the central role cognitive load plays in that process. I’m not an expert on CLT, just a teacher trying to understand how learning actually works, and how I can be more intentional in the way I plan, explain, and structure instruction. So here’s what I know now and how my teaching will change as a result.
The “Gist” of My CLT Schema
At the heart of CLT is a powerful concept about how our minds work: cognitive architecture. We all process new information through working memory, which is limited in both capacity and duration. To learn, that new information has to be organized into meaningful structures called schemas and stored in long-term memory, where it can later be retrieved and used.
The problem? Working memory is easily overloaded, especially when students are new to a topic or skill. If a lesson is cluttered with unnecessary information, distracting visuals, poorly timed instructions, or unclear tasks, students spend their limited mental resources trying to manage all that instead of learning the actual content.
That’s why, according to CLT, one of the most important things teachers can do to help students learn is reduce extraneous cognitive load, anything that makes learning harder without contributing to it. The idea is to reduce the extraneous “noise” so students can use more of their working memory capacity for the intrinsic load of the learning task.
A Love of Lists
So here is where I am at with all this. I have always been quite fond of lists, especially top 10 lists. Whether sports, movies, history, music, or restaurants, they always help me process and integrate information. One of my all-time favorites was David Letterman’s classic Top 10 List. During my youthful summers of staying up late, I always made a conscious effort to never miss one. In that spirit, this rest of this post counts down what I think are 10 most useful ideas I’ve learned about CLT and reducing extraneous load to help students learn, and what I plan to do differently in my classroom because of them.
Each one is structured like this:
What Cognitive Load Theory tells us
What that means for teaching
What I plan to do
Let’s get into it! Here are my top 10 instructional impacts based on Cognitive Load Theory.
#10: Don’t double up on the auditory channel
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: Presenting the same information in both written text and spoken form at the same time (like reading slides out loud) can overload the auditory channel in working memory.
Instructional design takeaway: Avoid redundancy. Use spoken words with images or written text on its own, not both at once.
What I plan to do: When I show a visual, I’ll explain it out loud. If I provide written text, I’ll let students read it first before explaining it.
#9: Start with a “bulletproof” definition
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: Students benefit from clear, concise mental anchors to reduce the effort of trying to figure out what matters.
Instructional design takeaway: Start with a simple, one-sentence definition of the key idea or concept and keep referring back to it.
What I plan to do: I’ll begin and end lessons with a clear definition of the key concept that students repeat and reference. As we work through examples, I’ll link everything back to that sentence.
#8: Keep related information close together
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: When students have to mentally integrate info that’s far apart (like a diagram on one page and explanation or question on another), it creates split-attention, increasing extraneous load.
Instructional design takeaway: Place related visuals, labels, directions, and questions as close together as possible in space and time.
What I plan to do: I’ll redesign handouts and slides to keep diagrams and captions side by side. I’ll also put directions right next to the task.
#7: Prompt students to self-explain worked examples
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: Learning from worked examples is more effective when students actively explain why each step makes sense. This helps them build connections and organize knowledge in long-term memory.
Instructional design takeaway: Insert prompts that ask students to explain the reasoning behind steps, not just use them to complete a task. These can be quick oral questions, sentence starters, or think-pair-share moments.
What I plan to do: I’ll add simple self-explanation prompts after worked examples like “Why did this step come next?” or “What principle is being used here?,” starting small and building the habit over time.
#6: Help students access important info that disappears
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: Transient information (heard/seen once, gone the next) increases extraneous load, especially if it’s complex or new.
Instructional design takeaway: Make important information visible or reviewable during and after it’s introduced.
What I plan to do: I’ll keep key ideas and information, important visuals, verbal explanations, and discussion points in student booklets for later reference.
#5: Use visual and auditory channels together, wisely
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: Working memory has two channels, visual and auditory, and we can use both to optimize working memory capacity if we present different information in each.
Instructional design takeaway: Pair non-redundant visuals and spoken explanations, not text, to reduce overload and enhance learning.
What I plan to do: When I teach using visuals, I’ll talk through them instead of showing text-heavy labels. I’ll stop reading text slides and instead narrate over images and visuals.
#4: Avoid redundancy that competes for space in working memory
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: The redundancy effect happens when the same information is presented in multiple ways, like reading text aloud while showing it, which can overload working memory.
Instructional design takeaway: Cut out any text, visuals, or explanations that don’t add new meaning or are already understood.
What I plan to do: I’ll streamline my materials by removing unnecessary text or repeated visuals and only include elements that clearly add to students’ understanding.
#3: Design for novices, not experts
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: What’s clear to experts is often overwhelming to novices. This is sometimes called the “curse of knowledge.”
Instructional design takeaway: Simplify explanations and examples, and gradually introduce more complexity as students build background knowledge (i.e., zoom out to zoom in)
What I plan to do: I’ll check that my explanations and examples are as clear and integrated as possible. I’ll also remind myself not to assume students know more than they do (i.e., the curse of knowledge). They are still novices. We will always zoom out before we zoom in.
#2: Structure worked examples for maximum efficiency
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: Worked examples reduce load by showing students how to solve problems, but only if they’re designed clearly and used with purpose.
Instructional design takeaway: Use examples side-by-side with problems, and “fade” support over time by removing steps gradually.
What I plan to do: I’ll start pairing examples and practice problems together and try out fading, leaving out one step at a time until students can solve problems on their own.
#1: Use students’ working memory like a precious resource (because it is)
Cognitive Load Theory tells us: Working memory is small and easy to overload. Anything that clutters or distracts reduces space for actual learning.
Instructional design takeaway: Be intentional with every element of instruction. Cut the clutter. Reduce distractions. Keep lessons focused.
What I plan to do: Before I teach, I’ll ask: Is this essential? Does this help learning? If not, I’ll leave it out. My job is to optimize students’ working memory for learning, not add more “seductive details” to manage.
To Be Continued…
I’m still early in my journey with Cognitive Load Theory and cognitive science as a whole, but learning the importance of extraneous load for creating optimal learning conditions has already changed how I think about teaching. It’s helped me see that learning isn’t just about the content I deliver, it’s about how I deliver it. If students don’t have sufficient space in working memory to process new ideas, even my best explanations won’t stick.
These Top 10 changes can be powerful for influencing the learning of my students. Small adjustments, like integrating materials effectively in the same space, using worked examples to model expert thinking, or cutting out redundant text and information, can make a big difference in helping students learn more and struggle less. And that’s the name of the game when we get down to it.
How would you rank these 10 ideas based on what you know about CLT and how we learn? It would make for a lively discussion, just like Letterman’s Top 10 lists always did in my house.
References
Ashman, Greg. A Little Guide for Teachers: Cognitive Load Theory. Corwin UK, 2022.
“Cognitive Load Theory and Its Application in the Classroom.” Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, NSW Department of Education, Sept. 2017, https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/about-us/educational-data/cese/2017-cognitive-load-theory.pdf.
“Cognitive Load Theory and Its Application in the Classroom.” Chartered College of Teaching, https://my.chartered.college/early-career-hub/cognitive-load-theory-and-its-application-in-the-classroom.
Lovell, Oliver. Cognitive Load Theory in Action: A Handbook for Teachers. John Catt Educational, 2020.
“The 10 Principles of Cognitive Load Theory.” InnerDrive, InnerDrive Ltd., https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/principles-cognitive-load-theory/. Accessed 25 June 2025.