In previous posts, our team has discussed the importance of designing courses with the students in mind. However, instructional designers should also consider the needs of the faculty while designing courses, especially their cognitive load. Developed by John Sweller in 1988, cognitive load theory notes that each of us has a mental schema (i.e., knowledge base) developed from “a series of structures that enable us to solve problems and think. It also allows us to look at several different elements within a lesson or experience and treat those elements as just one whole element” (Pappas, 2024). However, our minds can only retain so much information. When our mental schemas become overwhelmed with too much information, we experience cognitive overload.
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