Cognitive Load and Classroom Teaching: The Double-Edged Sword of Automaticity

Abstract

Research in the development of teacher cognition and teaching performance in K–12 classrooms has identified consistent challenges and patterns of behavior that are congruent with the predictions of dual-process models of cognition. However, cognitive models of information processing are not often used to synthesize these results. This article reviews findings from the research on teaching and teacher education through the lens of a dual-process model and emphasizes the role that cognitive load plays in driving teaching performance. Data reflecting the salience of automaticity and its relationship with cognitive overload are highlighted, and implications for teacher preparation and inservice training strategies are discussed. Specific suggestions for teacher training draw on empirical findings from cognitive approaches to training that emphasize the development of automaticity in teaching skills to minimize extraneous cognitive load and maximize effective performance.

Notes

¹For a discussion of political and philosophical conflicts surrounding this issue, see Kagan (1990).

²Although other reviews of research on teaching identify categorical distinctions between specific types of teacher cognition (e.g., comprehension, transformation, adaptation, instruction, evaluation, reflection, and new comprehensions; Shulman, 1987a), this article makes a broader argument about the role of the cognitive dual-process model in teaching. Therefore, it does not delineate subcategories of cognition.

³In the current article, highly experienced teachers are assumed to be experts to include the greatest proportion of relevant empirical literature. However, see Palmer, Stough, Burdenski, and Gonzales (2005) for an extensive discussion of alternative conceptions of teacher expertise.

⁴It should be noted that complex skills typically do not become fully automated. Frequently, individual subprocesses of the overall skill set will evidence automaticity, but the products of those subprocesses will be integrated under conscious control (for a more extensive discussion, see Feldon, 2007).

⁵The concept of cognitive task analysis is not new to understanding expert teachers' skills. Leinhardt (1990) offered guidelines for eliciting teachers' craft knowledge that were developed during the Carnegie Forum's Teacher Assessment Project (Shulman, 1987b). Similarly, Schoenfeld (1998) discussed the derivation of decision rules used by expert teachers.