Implementing LRL

Human beings can only have so much stuff in their working memory at one time. That fact is the foundation of cognitive load theory (CLT; Sweller, 1988). Working memory is the primary bottleneck for human learning and performance. Lots of design factors improve or impair what we can do within our finite working memories. That's what CLT studies.

Schools are unfriendly to teachers' working memory. That leads many teachers to regularly experience cognitive overload (Bolisani et al., 2018; Kirsh, 2000). Overloaded brains struggle to learn and perform well. LRL uses CLT to change this and help teachers be their best. Leaders can apply LRL to help teachers learn and teach. This creates schools where students learn and thrive, too.

Read each drop-down here. Skim the School Leader's Atlas. Don't try to do everything all at once. Find a couple of things to experiment with in the next couple of days.

Change involves adding or subtracting things. Humans have a cognitive bias for additive changes (Adams et al., 2021). Even when a subtractive change is a better solution, we are more likely to add new programs, policies, and/or structures instead. Over time, this bias leads schools to become much more complex than they need to be. Removing extraneous stuff makes it easier for teachers to teach well.

Reducing Extraneous Load is the first category of LRL-aligned actions. Related CLT effects in this category include differentiating, eliminating distractions, and eliminating interruptions.

Differentiating is an application of the expertise-reversal effect (Sweller et al., 2003). Experts and novices have different funds of knowledge, learning best in different conditions. Novice teachers have less background knowledge. Consequently, they learn more efficiently from more explicit and chunked professional development. Practicing to internalize learning and build background knowledge also has higher returns. Further, novices' learning needs are often different. Mastery of foundational management and pedagogical strategies is a productive line of work. Engaging in self-directed inquiry around niche pedagogies is not an efficient use of novices' time.

When experienced educators engage in the same work novices benefit most from, it wastes their time. Expert teachers are more likely to benefit from structured inquiry. Their more complex schema allows them to more effectively explore more complex problems. Providing every teacher with the same 'professional development' ensures that much of it is a waste of time.

Distractions and interruptions are common forms of extraneous loads. CLT experiments often use distractions and interruptions to reduce study participants' working memories. Distractions are environmental factors that aren't part of teachers' intrinsic work. Examples may include uncertainty about what to expect from administrators, uncomfortable classroom temperatures, a confusing staff handbook, a messy classroom, etc. In LRL, distractions also include work that does not advance schools' intrinsic work of educating students. Examples of these may include assessments teachers don't use to inform instruction, redundant assessments that measure the same thing, mandated curriculum that was proven ineffective, etc.

Interruptions are extraneous and take teachers' attention away from their intrinsic work. These include intercom announcements, people rudely entering classrooms, students engaging in some off-task behaviors, passing subway trains, etc. Some interruptions are inevitable. There are proactive things you can do to minimize them. Alternatives include using asynchronous communication for most announcements, developing schoolwide systems and routines to reduce interruptions, ensuring that classrooms near trains have sound abatement up-to-code, etc.

If nothing at your school came to mind while reading this section, ask a couple of staff members. Odds are, they have a list; you might start with the next step instead. If something comes to mind, experiment with taking it away and see what happens. Subtractive changes are generally better than additive solutions. In addition to addressing the problem, they free resources. Reducing extraneous loads frees teachers to better serve students.

You introduced the survey and began discussions about intrinsic work and expectations. You might discover difficulties communicating exactly what you want or mean. Others may focus on tangential details or completely misinterpret what you're saying. Background knowledge and other factors may lead staff to miss the big picture.

Focusing attention is LRL's third category. Multiple CLT strategies help people direct their attention to the most important stuff. Overwhelmed folks struggle to pay the right amount of attention to the right things.

The most obvious strategy involves explicitly telling folks where to direct their attention. Humans are hardwired to look where someone is pointing (Macken & Ginns, 2014; Zhang et al., 2023). Children trace their fingers across the page while learning to read. This intuitive behavior helps them stay focused and not lose their place. In school improvement settings, this pointing effect takes the form of feedback. Provide explicit feedback that directs staff attention to one thing at a time. When there is a lot of other stuff going on, explicitly pointing to what's most important is essential.

One of the most important CLT-focusing phenomena is the worked example effect (Atkinson et al., 2000; Barbieri et al., 2023). Worked examples involve presenting a complete, expertly solved example. They allow learners to focus on an overall process first. After seeing how the parts work together, learners then shift their attention to individual steps. This avoids not being able to see the forest for the trees. Traditionally presented multistep math problems are notoriously difficult for most learners. Learners need enormous cognitive resources to understand and keep track of each step before understanding how everything fits together. For principals, this means communicating expectations by example. This means showing staff what complete lessons or instructional routines look like. Directing teachers' practice through verbal explanation or written description often doesn't work. The most common way to provide worked examples is through intervisitations. Identify which teachers best exemplify your expectations and encourage everyone to visit. If no one on staff can do what you want, teach demo lessons and invite staff to watch.

Focusing attention also includes avoiding conditions that impair attention. Eliminating redundancies is an application of the redundancy effect (Albers et al., 2023). Simultaneously attending to duplications of the same information adds extraneous load. For example, reading along to something being read aloud wastes cognitive capacity. Staff learn more from text if they have more working memory available to connect with prior knowledge. So, stop asking people to read along with things being read aloud during meetings.

The split attention effect (Chandler & Sweller, 1992; Rill et al. 2018) is similar. It occurs when individuals need to use some of their working memory on managing materials rather than the intrinsic task. This happens when teachers need to use several different platforms for a single workflow. An ideal IEP writing system would integrate all relevant information and tools into a single place. In some places, a teacher may need to use a special secure platform for IEP writing, a second secure platform to access student assessment data, a third secure platform to access anecdotal records from other teachers, a fourth secure system with student grades, a document of policy recommendations, and several different curricula. Wherever possible streamline the tools and resources teachers need to do their work.

Now you have the basic toolkit. Keep looking for quick wins. Applying CLT principles makes it easier for teachers to be great. Even if the response rate has dropped, keep using the survey.  Keep optimizing school systems. If you haven't already, teach your staff some GTD-like tools to help them think even more clearly. 

Accept the things you cannot change. Compliance issues and protocols still need to be done. Even if they're not well-designed, even if they produce huge extraneous loads, do them. You might also be surprised how survey data changes what you can change. Telling your superintendent a particular mandated system annoys your staff is one thing. Saying that 94% of your staff thinks it causes excessive stress and negatively impacts their teaching is another. 

Don't rush into big changes. You've probably identified several large overhauls your school needs. Take time to think them through, prioritizing them based on capacity and impact. If possible, pilot things to iron out kinks before school-wide launches. Time those launches with natural restarts like the beginning of a new semester. 

Be thoughtful about instructional changes. The whole point of LRL is to create space for teachers to become stronger pedagogues. Don't push staff to do something because some other successful school does it. Your school is different. Someone else's best practice might not work for your staff and students. That said, dig into coherent research-based practices. There's some great stuff out there. Before rolling something out, closely read the book. You're going to learn alongside your staff. But they might not take it seriously unless they see your seriousness and dog-eared copy. Be prepared to model the practice(s) yourself. Use summer to plan a coherent professional learning sequence introducing the new practice(s). Ensure the plan consistently connects to larger goals and includes lots of time for practice and reflection.

Let us know how it goes.