TheFlippedScientist

The Microsoft E2 education exchange is upon us and I have been following from afar on twitter. The keynote on the first day involved a discussion on how do we instil students with the courage to fail and then learn from failure. This led to me be involved in the discussion of the use of such language as a failure when teaching students. One particular contributor to this discussion was Garret. Z of PBJ games and we both came to the conclusion that digital games could be an approach to develop the skill of setbacks as just a short-term hurdle to learning and a way to reduce risk averse behaviour to learning. This is in part because game-based learning could be a way to revolutionise learning through technology, something that I have explored in detail in the New Zealand context. Along with the United States, online assessment  is fast becoming part of the New Zealand educational landscape  (Baugh, 2011). Additionally, the use of digital technologies by learners in N

As part of my personal development as an educator, I have been learning my way through a couple of MOOCs around innovative teaching strategies to improve my teaching in the classroom. One of these is called Deep Learning through Transformative Pedagogy from the University of Queensland, that reintroduced me to the idea of cognitive load.  Cognitive load refers to the demands placed on a learner's cognitive system when performing a task. According to cognitive load theory, the brain has a limit on how many concepts it can process at one time. Therefore, learning should take this limit into consideration when supporting the acquisition and application of concepts (Paas, Tuovinen, Tabbers, Van Gerven, 2003). If the working memory capacity is exceeded in a learning task, this impacts negatively on learning (de Jong, 2010). Three things contribute to the total cognitive load: Intrinsic cognitive load refers to the complexity of a task. Extraneous cognitive loa