Tips To Help Reduce Your Cognitive Overload in eLearning
As we continue to advance in the digital age, the demand for e-learning courses is only getting stronger.
This has created a new challenge:
How can businesses create an e-learning course that answered the learners exportations?
How can you develop engaging content ?
And How to Promote continus Learning ?
One way to do this is by keeping cognitive overload at a minimum.
Cognitive overload is something we experience when there’s too much information coming at us too quickly.
It’s not something everyone will experience in their everyday life; however, it can become apparent when you have to learn something new and difficult at the same time.
In this article, we’ll discuss exactly what cognitive overload is and how you can reduce it as much as possible in your e-learning course.
What is Cognitive Overload?
Cognitive overload is a psychological state that occurs when someone has too much information to process in a given amount of time.
This can occur when a person is trying to learn something new and to much information comes at once with not hierarchy or structure.
Cognitive overload is the result of a situation in which the attention capacity of an individual reaches its limit in attempting to process certain stimuli.
It occurs when there is a discrepancy between the demand posed on an individual and the attentional resources available to process the demand.
In other words, cognitive overload happens when you try to process too much information at the same time.
And if that happens, you’re likely to experience confusion, frustration, and even a loss of interest in learning.
Defining Learning Styles
Learning styles is a term that’s been around for more than three decades.
In the past, people have used learning styles to determine the best way to teach a certain subject. Today, the concept of learning styles (persona) has evolved slightly.
In fact, researchers now believe that learning styles are not static. This means that a learner’s style won’t stay the same throughout their life.
What people now refer to as learning styles are more along the lines of learning preferences.
This means that a person may prefer to learn in a specific way, but they may be able to learn in other ways if needed :
Audios,
illustrations, ¨
videos,
Discussions,
workshops,
webinars.
When it comes to reducing cognitive overload in your e-learning course, understanding learning styles can be helpful. This is because it allows you to design your e-learning course in a way that appeals to different types of learners.
Tips to Reduce Cognitive Overload in E-Learning
There are a number of ways you can reduce cognitive overload in your e-learning course.
In fact, these tips can help you reduce frustration and increase learner motivation as well.
Let’s take a look at three ways you can reduce cognitive overload in your e-learning course:
Adopt Video-based Learning
Video-based learning can help reduce cognitive overload in your e-learning course.
In fact, it’s one of the best ways to do this. When you use video in your e-learning course, you can help break down the content into smaller pieces.
This helps reduce the overall cognitive load of the e-learning course. When you use video in your e-learning course, it helps you reduce the cognitive load in a number of ways.
For instance, using video base learning helps keep your learners engaged, which can make them less frustrated. It can also make the content easier to understand, which can reduce cognitive load as well.
In fact, studies have shown that video is 2,900% more effective at helping people retain information.
Embrace Microlearning
Microlearning is the process of breaking down content into shorter, manageable chunks.
This is a great way to reduce cognitive overload when designing your e-learning course.
When you break your content down into smaller chunks, it can make it easier to understand.
This can help reduce the overall cognitive load of your elearning course.
When you break down your content into smaller pieces, it can also make it more engaging.
This can help keep your learners’ attention and help them retain more information.
Provide a clear learning objective.
The first thing you’ll want to do is make sure learners know what they’re expected to get out of the e-learning course.
One way to do this is by clearly stating the e-learning objective at the beginning of the online course.
This can help reduce the overall cognitive load of the online course.
Design an e-learning course that’s easy to navigate
Navigation is another aspect of your e-learning course that can disrupt cognitive load.
If a user has to navigate through your course and do something that’s difficult to understand, cognitive overload can quickly set in.
Use visuals to help break down the content
Visuals are an excellent way to break down your content and make it easier to understand for your audience.
When you use visuals and images to help explain concepts, you’re taking away some of the cognitive load that would be present if you didn’t use them.
This can make your e-learning course much more enjoyable and less frustrating for learners.
2 More Tips To Help Reduce Cognitive Overload in E-Learning
Plan your learning experience
When you’re creating your e-learning course, it’s helpful to plan the entire experience.
This includes everything from the design, the visuals, and the navigation.
Planning your e-learning course can help reduce cognitive overload because it allows you to break down the course into smaller pieces.
This ensures that learners won’t be overwhelmed by too much information at once.
Provide time for reflection
One mistake that many e-learning designers make is including everything that they want to teach at once. Instead of doing this, it’s important to provide time for reflection at the end of a course.
This can help reduce the overall cognitive load of the course.
Conclusion on how to Reduce Your Cognitive Overload
Cognitive overload can be a significant problem for both learners and e-learning designers.
It can make the learning experience more frustrating and difficult to get through.
To help reduce cognitive load in your e-learning course, you can use these tips.
Adopt video-based learning, break down your content into smaller pieces, and embrace microlearning or what we call Nuggets Learning and.
With these tips, you can create an e-learning course that’s easier to understand and more enjoyable to get through.