The Theory of Cognitive Load: Introduction and Types

The brain processing that a person undergoes to understand a specific thing is called cognitive load. The cognitive load is subject to various factors such as person, medium of expression, language of instruction, prior experience, the quantity of information, and time duration given to learn the issue.

Person: Cognitive Load differs from person to person according to his age group, educational qualification, IQ and mental and sensual abilities.

Language of instruction: Cognitive Load differs depending on language of instruction. If language of instruction is the native language of the audience, they experience less cognitive load. Otherwise, they experience more cognitive load.

Medium of expression: Cognitive Load differs depending on medium of expression. Listening creates less cognitive load than reading and watching/viewing creates less cognitive load than listening. Practical experience reduces the load almost to the maximum possible extent.

Language of instruction: If the language of instruction is the native language or well known language, the audience feel less cognitive load. Otherwise, they have to spend additional time on understanding the language in addition to the time they spend to understand the instruction.  

Amount of time: When a person is supposed to learn a particular thing, he feels more cognitive load. When he is given more time to learn the same thing, he feels less cognitive load.  

Quantity of instruction: The more a person has to learn in a specified time, the more cognitive load he feels and vice versa.

Types of Cognitive Load

There are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic cognitive load, germane cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load.

Intrinsic cognitive load: It is the inherent difficulty associated with an instruction. For example, even to calculate a simple addition of 2 and 2, a person has to undergo certain amount of brain processing. It cannot be reduced by an instructor.

Extraneous cognitive load: It is generated by the style of presentation of information. An instructional designer can reduce it by presenting the information in an effective manner.

For example, a teacher is supposed to explain his students about “Circle”. If the teacher delivers a lecture, defining in different ways what a circle is, it becomes very difficult for the students to understand what a circle is. If the teacher displays an image of a circle and then explains about it, students feel it easy to understand what a circle is. Here, visual medium is better than verbal medium and reduces the extraneous cognitive load of the concept.

It does not load the learner with unnecessary information.  Extraneous cognitive load can be reduced or completely avoided while intrinsic cognitive load is a natural one and cannot be avoided. In fact, the theory of Cognitive Load is primarily concentrated on the reduction of extraneous cognitive load.

Germane cognitive load: It is an interesting theory stating that certain amount of cognitive load is actually a good thing as it creates schemas or mental models that enable the audience to learn something in more efficient manner in the future. It deals with motivation methods and techniques.

Most of the cognitive load researchers are of an opinion that germane cognitive load should be increased as it results in more efficient learning. Germane cognitive load deals only with the characteristics of learner and the memory that the learner uses to deal with the intrinsic cognitive load. 

Written by: S.Chandrashekara Reddy

Mail ID: chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com

Basic Issues and Guidelines of Instructional Design

When you are preparing a learning material, following are the basic things to keep in view:

•        Audience Analysis: Determine the current ability of the learners

•        Method of teaching& Media Selection

•        Topic & Objective of learning

•        Introduction and commencement

•        Recollection and assessment of prior knowledge

•        Break down topic into smaller subtopics

•        Subject Presentation: Examples/Scenarios, Language and Style,

•        Assessment

•        Feedback

Audience Analysis: When you are writing something, you must know for whom you are writing.  You have to prepare the content, keeping in view your audience.  Audience analysis includes various things some of which are mentioned below:

• Age
• Educational Qualification
• Region & Native language
• Familiarity with the language of instruction
• Prior knowledge of subject  

Points to remember:

Ø      In some instances, the language of instruction may not be the native language of the audience.  Hence, do not use idioms popular among the native speakers.  Otherwise, the audience may not follow the instruction or may take some other meaning.

Ø      In Technical writing as well as instructional designing, the usage of idioms is highly discouraged.

Method and Medium of teaching: The writer should know the medium and method of communications as he is supposed to prepare his content for various mediums such as textbook, e-book, audiocassette, videocassette, and website.

Topic & Objective of learning:  It is the duty of an instructional designer to enable audience to know what and what for they are learning all about.

Introduction and commencement: After explaining Objective of Learning, give a brief introduction.  Commence your topic with either an interesting illustration or a though provoking question.

Recollection and assessment of prior knowledge: Make your readers to recollect his prior knowledge and assess themselves about how far they are acquainted with the topic.  To get the desired results, ask them thought provoking questions and make them to think of the topic.

Break down topic into smaller subtopics: Break down main topic into smaller sub-topics.

Presentation with examples: After breaking down main topic into smaller sub-topics, explain each sub-topic in detail with illustrations and examples.

FAQ’s: After the completion of a task, mention FAQs. It enables the audience to understand the topic in more effective and detailed manner.  While preparing FAQs, stress more on misconceptions and prepare questions related to misconceptions.

Assessment and Feedback: After the completion of topic, enable the readers to assess themselves by providing various exercises.  Also provide them with feedback by providing them with answers for given questions.  Assessment helps the reader to know his level of understanding and builds confidence among readers.  As a part of assessment, stress more on misconceptions.

You can assess your reader with following types of Assessment:

•        Short Answer Question

•        Fill-in-the-blanks

•        Multiple Choice

•        Match

•        Sequence

•        Open ended

•        Simulation

Self evaluation: Motivate your audience to have timely self evaluation after the completion of every topic.   

Guidelines to Instructional Designers:

• Follow Learners’ Centric Approach
• Clarification of Misconceptions
• Usage of idioms

Follow Learners’ Centric Approach: In olden days, teaching used to teachers’ centric.  In course of time, educationalists realized the importance of making it learners’ centric.  Encourage the engagement of learners so that they learn with an enthusiasm.

When you prepare content for either training or educational purpose, follow the learner’s centric approach. 

Ø      Make them involved in the learning process by asking them frequent questions related to the subject. Give a list of questions after the completion of every topic in order to enable the learners to assess themselves.  

Ø      Ask them their personal experiences related to the concept.  For example, if you are teaching about the concept ‘Inflation’, ask them to remember the prices of various day-to-day commodities when they were children.

Clarification of Misconceptions:  When you are supposed to conduct a training or educational program on a particular concept, you must know the misconceptions your audience had about the concept. While explaining about the concept, you must stress more up on misconceptions.  You also mention them in FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).

While assessing the prior as well as acquired knowledge of your audience, observe how far they are away from misconceptions by asking more number of and challenging questions on misconceptions.

Usage of Idioms: Usually, idioms make text live and readable. However, it is not advisable for instructional designers to use idioms.  Idioms are usually popular among the native speakers.  In some instances, the language of instruction may not be the native language of the audience and audience may not follow the instruction or may take some other meaning. Hence, the usage of idioms is highly discouraged.

   
Note: Same thing is applicable to technical writing too)  

Written by: S.Chandrashekara Reddy

Mail ID: chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com

Graph Phobia – Its causes and guidelines to overcome it

Graph phobia is an unusual fear of writing or handwriting.  It is usually found among students, semi-literates, those who do not enjoy good command over language, and those who were de-motivated to write due to several other reasons.

Reasons for Graph Phobia: There are several reasons for graph phobia as mentioned below.  

• Bad Hand Writing: Some may fear or feel shameful to show others their bad handwriting.
• Bad Grammar and Spelling Mistakes: Some may not have good command over the language and may fear of committing spelling and grammatical mistakes.  Such people get naturally de-motivated to let others know their linguistic and writing inabilities.
• Lack of Subject Knowledge: It is quite natural that people feel tense to write about topics with which they are not much acquainted.   
• Fear of lower grade: Some may fear to attend a test or competition with a fear of getting lower grades.  Sometimes, if a person keeps on getting lower grades continuously over a period of time, he/she may hesitate and even fear to face a test or competition.  Such kind of fear is usually found among students.
• Gap between Thinking & Writing Process: Some may feel frustrated while writing as their writing or typing speed is not par with the speed of their thought process.  Such gap may frustrate the writer and may de-motivate the writer not to write anything in future.

Take the help of computers as most children can type long before they can handwrite at any satisfactory speed.  Elementary students who show any writing phobia should not be given graded assignments in writing. Writing should become a fun activity.

How to come out of Graph Phobia:

Following are some of the guidelines to come out of Graph Phobia: 

• If your bad handwriting is the cause of your phobia, do not write anything by your hand but use a computer to write something.  Moreover, you join some hand writing training sessions in order to improve your handwriting.
• If you are de-motivated due to the spellings and grammar mistakes that may occur in your writing, do not write on a paper, but instead type your content in Ms-Word file.  The Ms-Word file displays the spelling mistakes with green lines and grammar mistakes with red lines.  It even suggests correct spellings and correct grammatical versions of the wrong sentences. Thus, it helps you to cover-up and overcome your linguistic inabilities. You can also take the help of free grammar and spell checkers that are available online.

(However, this suggestion has some limitations too as Ms-Word supports only English)

• If you are de-motivated due to the spellings and grammar mistakes that may occur in your writing, try to get your writings edited by a language expert or at least a friend.  You too put efforts personally to improve your language.
• If lack of subject awareness is the cause of your phobia, try to improve your knowledge about the concerned issue about which you are supposed to write.  Internet is the best option to know about various unknown concepts time to time.
•    
• While attending tests or writing competitions, stop bothering about grades.  Do your best in the tests and writing competitions and always remember that “You are concerned with work but not with result”.  You perform root cause analysis and try to identify the factor that is causing you to get lower grade and rectify the error.
• Some writers often feel frustrated while writing as their writing or typing speed is not par with the speed of their thought process.  Such frustration may de-motivate the writer to write something. If you face such situation, prefer typing instead of writing hand.  Try to improve your typing speed by learning typing/DTP techniques. Practice DTP for at least half an hour a day.
• Practice free writing technique.  Some psychologists and counselors suggest as the best exercise for curing Graph Phobia.

(Do you want to know about Free Writing, visit: http://csrkingdom.blogspot.com/2011/04/free-writing-introduction.html) 

Contact: S. Chandrashekara Reddy

Mail Id: chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com

Miscellaneous Issues to be remembered by Content Writers

• There is no plural form for Software.  Instead of softwares, you use software tools or software applications.
• Whenever you want to write about Google search engine, write down – Google but not google.
• Whenever you want to mention a date use name of the month rather than number.  For example, instead of writing 11-3-2011, it advisable to write 11^th March, 2011 or March 11^th, 2011. If mention the date as 1-12-2011, the reader may be confused whether it is 1^st December, 2011 or 12^th January, 2011 because while mentioning dates, some writers follow dd-mm-yy method and others follow mm-dd-yy method.

Introduction to Instructional Design

Introduction: Instructional design is a scientific and systematic approach used to design material for learning in order to make an educational or training program more effective, systematic, and consistent.  They prepare materials such as textbooks, workbooks, guides, study material and question banks in order help the learners to learn in an effective manner.

History: The subject “Instructional Design” became more popular during World War II when the U.S. military was supposed to train large numbers of people to perform complex technical tasks.  To explain them about complex tasks in a simple manner, the trainers used to break the tasks into sub-tasks and used to treat each subtask as a separate learning goal.

The trainers got very good results with their approach of splitting a task into different subtasks and training the soldiers in each different task with the help of simple instructions.  After the war, the trainers started implementing the same strategy in business and industrial sectors.  They also implemented the strategy to an extent in the primary and secondary education.  Later, educationalists propounded several learning theories in order to make it easy for learners to learn in an easy and most effective manner.

Instructional Design Strategies

Types of Instructional Strategies

•        Macro Strategies

•        Micro Strategies (information presentation-level)

•        Assessment Strategies

Macro Strategies: These strategies deal with course level issues such as structure of course and syllabus.

Micro Strategies: These strategies deal with presentation level issues such as method, medium, and style of presentation.

Assessment Strategies: Assessment strategies deal with the assessment issues. Assessments are of various types such as assessment of prior knowledge, assessment of learnt knowledge, and assessment of performance.

Stasis Questions

Tagmemics

•         Writing lab: HEAV 226, Purdue University

•         On-line writing lab: http://owl.english.purdue.edu

•          Email: owl@owl.english.purdue.edu

Keep one idea to one paragraph

–        Begin transition into a new idea, belongs in a new paragraph.

Listings:  Chronological Simple to complex General to specification

• Region & Native language
• Familiarity with the language of instruction

Miscellaneous Concepts related to Instructional Design

•         Collection of content

•         Bloom’s Taxonomy

•         Information Mapping

•         To motivate and build confidence

•         Cognitive Load

•         Mind Mapping

•         Expository

•         Exploratory

•         Progressive display

•         Analogy/Metaphor

•         Simulation

•         Use intro animation

•         Use pictorial elements, such as maps, graphics, pictures, tables

•         Outline content

•         Provide graphic overviews/

•         Explain purpose or relevance

•         Generate analogies and examples

•         Pedagogic techniques

•         Andragogical techniques

•         cognitive and behavioral psychology.

•         Guidelines – Instructions –Clustering

An unedited article on Technical Writing

Technical writers explain technology and related ideas to technical and nontechnical audiences. This could mean, for example, telling a programmer how to use a software library or telling a consumer how to operate a television remote control. Technical writers gather information from existing documentation and from subject matter experts. Technical writers are often not SMEs themselves. Technical writers themselves may be called API Writers, information developers, documentation specialists, documentation engineers, or technical content developers. Advanced technical writers often move into specialized areas such as API writing, information architecture or document management.

Misconceptions about Technical Writing:

Misconceptions: Technical writers are confined only to Software and Hardware industry.

Fact: Technical writers are not merely confined to Software and Hardware industry as they can be found in various fields such as Aeronautical, Robotics, Pharmacology, electronics, and tele-communications.

Misconceptions: Technical writers simply prepare User Guides or Instructions

Fact: Though they mainly prepare User Guides and Instruction write-ups, their job consists of various responsibilities.

The write-ups of technical writers can be classified into two categories:

• End User Assistance write-ups
• Traditional documentation

End User Assistance write-ups: The write-ups are meant for assisting/guiding the end user.

• User Guide/User Manual
• Help file
• General Instructions

Traditional documentation:

• Case studies
• Test cases
• Technical documents
• Reference literature
• Articles on technical issues and research papers

Your business write-up acts like a sales person. Your investment on your website is like a longterm investment and it keeps on generating you revenue for years together.

CMMI - Introduction

1. What is CMMI?

A: CMMI stands for Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).  It is a process-oriented approach that helps either a project or a division or an organization improve their performances.

2. How many CMMI levels are there?

A: There are five CMMI Levels and each succeeding level indicates higher maturity of the organization/division/project.

3. Who did develop CMMI standards?

A: CMMI was developed by a group of experts from software industry, USA government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. The present day CMMI is the successor of the Software CMM, which was developed from 1987 to 1997. CMMI Version 1.3, introduced in 2010, is the latest version.

3. Is CMMI certification confined only to Software industry?

A: Present day CMMI is the successor of the Software CMM, which was confined only to software industry. However, it has been highly generalized over the years and nowadays; we can find CMMI certification in various other industries such as hardware, services, and acquisition industry.

4. Does the application of CMMI increase performance in every organization?

A: It is not guaranteed that mere application of CMMI standards increase performance in every organization.  A small company with limited staff and resources may not benefit much from CMMI.

5. List out the Core Process Areas of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

A:

·         Causal Analysis

·         Configuration Management

·         Decision Analysis and Resolution

·         Integrated Project Management

·         Measurement and Analysis

·         Organizational Process Definition

·         Organizational Process Focus

·         Organizational Performance Management

·         Organizational Process Performance

·         Organizational Training

·         Project Monitoring and Control

·         Project Planning'

·         Process and Product Quality Assurance

·         Quantitative Project Management

·         Requirements Management

·         Risk Management

Multimedia Development Lifecycle

1. What are phases of "Multimedia Development Life Cycle Model"?

A: Typically, the Multimedia Development Life Cycle Model has 7 phases:

Ph1:Requirement Specifications

Ph2:Design

Ph3:Content Development 

Ph4:Product Development

Ph5:Integration

Ph6:Testing

Ph7: Delivery

2. What is Requirement Specification?

A: The main purpose of Requirement Specification phase is to define the final requirements by analyzing the basic requirements(s) of the client or management. This helps to generate "Requirement Specification" document.

3. What is Requirement Analysis?

A: The purpose of the requirement analysis is to produce confirmed "Requirement specification"

document. The client requirements are at first mentioned in Minutes of Meeting(MOM), based on which Project Estimation (WBS) is prepared. Based on the estimation, "Project Plan" is prepared.

Requirement Specifications document is prepared, based up on the inputs of Minutes of Meeting(MOM) and Project Plan. The Requirement Specification document acts as the input for the preparation of Acceptance Test Plan and Acceptance Test Cases. The Estimation (WBS) is prepared by the PL/PM as per the Estimation Procedure. The WBS should be reviewed as per the Review Procedure.

4. Who does prepare Project Plan? How is Project Plan prepared?

A: The Project Plan is prepared by PL/PM as per the Development Project Plan Procedure.

5. What does a Project Plan continue?

A: Project Plan is used to capture the scope and overview of the project, project metrics, execution project plan, and configuration management of the project.

6. How do you review the Project Plan?

A: The Project Plan should be reviewed as per the Project Plan Review Checklist.

7. How is RS document prepared?

A: The RS document is prepared by the PL/PM as per the Requirement Specification Procedure. The RS document is used to capture the final requirements of the project.

8. How is RS reviewed?

A: The RS of the project should be reviewed as per the Review Procedure and the RS Review Checklist for feasibility, completeness and clarity. The client's approval for RS should be obtained wherever applicable.

9. How is ATP prepared?

A: The Acceptance Test Plan document is prepared as per the Requirement Specification document. The ATP is used to capture the Test Items, Requirement Traceability, Testing Methods, and Entry and Exit Criteria. The Acceptance Test Plan should be prepared as per the Acceptance Test section of Test Development Procedure. The Acceptance Test Plan should be reviewed as per the Review Procedure using the Test Plan review checklist.

10. How are Acceptance Test Cases prepared?

A: The Acceptance Test Cases are prepared based on RS Document and Acceptance Test Plan.

The test cases are prepared by the testing team and are reviewed as per Review Checklist.

11. What is the purpose of the design phase?

A: The purpose of the design phase is to prepare complete Presentation Flow of the Project/Product. The aim of the Presentation Specification document is to define Detailed Story Board, Presentation Flow, Interface Design Specifications, Design Metaphors and AVTGN (Audio, Video, Test, Graphics, and Animations) Specifications. 

12. How is the PS document prepared by PL?

A: The PS document should be prepared by PL and should be reviewed with the help of "PS Review checklist".

13. How are Unit Test Cases prepared?

A: The Unit Test Cases are prepared based on Unit Test Plan. The test cases are prepared by the development team and are reviewed as per Review Checklist.

14. How is Integration Test Plan prepared?

A: The Integration Test Plan is prepared by PL/PM and it consists of Integrating Strategies, Testing Approach, and Entry and Exit criteria. The Design document should form the basis for planning the Integration test. The Integration Test Plan should be prepared as per the Integration Test section of the Test Development Procedure. The Integration Test Plan should be reviewed as per the Test Plan Review Checklist. The Integration Test Cases are prepared based on Integration Test Plan.  The test cases are prepared by the testing team and are reviewed as per Review Checklist.

15. What is the purpose of Content Development?

A: The purpose of Content Development phase is to prepare all the assets (Media Elements) required to develop a product/project. 

16. How are assets developed?

A: All the assets should be prepared based on "Presentation Specifications.”  Content is developed as per "Content Development Guidelines.”

17. Who will review the assets?

A: The assets developed by Team Members should be reviewed by PL/Peer and approved by PM.

18. How is System Test Plan prepared?

A: System Test Plan is prepared by testing team members as per PS document and Test Development Procedure.  The System Test Plan should explain the approach for testing the feature and functionality of the project during System Testing. The System Test Plan should be

reviewed as per the test plan review checklist.

19. How are System Test Cases prepared?

A: The System Test Cases are prepared based on Presentation Specification document and System Test Plan.  The test cases are prepared by the testing team and are reviewed as per Review checklist.

20. What is the purpose of Product Development Phase?

A: The purpose of Product Development phase is to assemble all the media assets.

21. How do you assemble all the media assets?

A: The assets are assembled by Team Members in Director Framework, reviewed by PL/Review

Team and approved by PM. Action Script too is used wherever required. The phase includes coding and execution of the Unit Test Cases.

22. What is the purpose of Integration phase?

A: The purpose of Integration phase is to develop the code for each module and to integrate all the modules in order to create an integrated product/project. The modules, integrated by Team Members, are reviewed by PL/Review Team and approved by PM. This phase includes the execution of the Integration Test Cases.

23. What is the purpose of Testing?

A: The purpose of testing phase is to define and establish necessary testing procedures.  The testing is performed by testing team, based on "System Test Plan" document.  The testing, performed by QC team, should be reviewed and approved by Head-QA.

24. What is the purpose of Testing phase?

A: The purpose of Testing phase is to define and establish necessary testing procedure.

25. How is testing phase performed?

A: The testing should be performed by testing team, based on "System Test Plan" Document. The testing, performed by QC team, should be reviewed and approved by Head-QA.

26. What is the purpose of Delivery phase?

A: The objective of this phase is to deliver the fully tested functional product. In this phase,  Master CD will be prepared and delivered to the client. The functional product is developed only after confirming that the product is designed according to the client specifications. The fully tested functional product should be delivered by PM and approved by Client.

27. What documents are prepared after the delivery of the product?

A: "Project Retrospective Report" and "Project Feedback" are prepared after the delivery of the product.