The author presents an introduction to cognitive challenges and teaching strategies for optimal student learning.
Date created: May 20, 2022 6 min read
- Learning and Memory
- Schools and Classrooms
Cite this
American Psychological Association. (2022, May 20). Cognitive Challenges of Effective Teaching. https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psychology-teacher-network/introductory-psychology/challenges-to-teaching
Teachers have to manage a complex variety of cognitive factors in order to help their students learn. Stephen Chew and I created a framework, the Cognitive Challenges of Effective Teaching, to help guide teachers through the challenges that each of these factors presents (Chew & Cerbin, 2021).The framework consists of nine cognitive challenges that can impede students’ learning (See Table 1).
Table 1: The Cognitive Challenges of Effective Teaching
Challenge | Description |
Student mental mindset | Students believe they lack the ability needed to learn the content. |
Metacognition and self-regulation | Students do not monitor and judge their level of understanding of concepts or regulate their learning effectively. |
Student fear and mistrust | Students have a certain level of fear about a course or interpret the teacher’s behavior as being unsupportive of their learning, resulting in some degree of mistrust. |
Insufficient prior knowledge | Students have little or no background knowledge of the course content or do not prepare adequately for class. |
Misconceptions | Students often hold faulty or mistaken beliefs about the course content leading them to misinterpret or reject course material. |
Ineffective learning strategies | Students use ineffective learning strategies. |
Transfer of learning | Students fail to apply knowledge to new problems and situations. |
Constraints of selective attention | Students are not able to learn effectively when they split their attention by multitasking or attending to irrelevant information. |
Constraints of mental effort and working memory | Students may be overwhelmed by complex tasks and by trying to take in and remember too much information. |
These nine challenges are present in every teaching and learning context. Not only can each challenge impede learning, but they interact; each challenge influences and is influenced by others. Consider three common examples:
- When the amount of new information exceeds students’ working memory capacity, they are likely to be overloaded and unable to process it effectively. However, students with rich prior knowledge are less likely to be overloaded. Their prior knowledge enables them to interpret and process new information more quickly.
- Students who use ineffective study strategies may fail to acquire the prior knowledge they need to benefit from class lectures and assignments, which in turn may affect their mental mindset and influence them to believe they lack the ability needed to learn in the course.
- Students often multitask when studying and in class. A common student misconception is that it is easy to do two tasks simultaneously, such as texting a friend while listening to a teacher’s presentation. Students who multitask are unaware that multitasking divides their attention which can interfere with learning.
Implications for teaching
Each class and class period involves a unique combination of cognitive challenges. There is no single teaching method that will be effective in every learning context and class. What works for one class one day may not work well the next day. What works in your 10:00 class may be less effective in your 2:00 section. In this model, effective teaching is a matter of managing the challenges in the classroom to bring about student learning.
Teachers can use the framework to anticipate, recognize and respond to the cognitive challenges in their classroom. Below are examples of ways to adapt teaching to address several challenges.
- To establish trust among struggling students, teachers can use wise feedback to communicate the belief that students are capable of succeeding in the course and that critical feedback is intended to help them improve, not to weed them out.
- To help students develop essential prior knowledge in the class, teachers can use practice quizzes with homework assignments to ensure they have an initial grasp of key concepts before each class. Practice quizzes can also reveal students’ knowledge gaps and misconceptions about the subject matter which teachers can then address in class.
- To support students’ attention, teachers can explain the detrimental effects of multitasking in class and when studying.
- In class, teachers can adjust the organization and pace of their class presentations to manage the difficulty students will experience in trying to learn large amounts of new information.
Table 2 gives an example of a teaching strategy for each cognitive challenge.
Table 2: Teaching Strategies for Each Challenge
Challenge | Example Teaching Strategy |
Student mental mindset | Promote growth mindset beliefs, e.g., ability and competence grow with effort. |
Metacognition and self-regulation | Promote self-testing as a way for students to judge their learning more accurately. |
Student fear and mistrust | Use “wise feedback” to convey high standards to students and that you believe they can attain the standards. |
Insufficient prior knowledge | Assign a reading and practice quiz that target concepts relevant to the upcoming class. Adjust the lesson to address students’ prior knowledge gaps. |
Misconceptions | Before class, assign a reading and practice quiz that target concepts relevant to the upcoming class. Use the quiz to identify misunderstandings of the topics. Adjust the lesson to address students’ misconceptions. |
Ineffective learning strategies | Teach students to use effective study behaviors as part of the course. |
Transfer of learning | Provide opportunities for students to practice applying course material to new problems and contexts. |
Constraints of selective attention | Help students become aware of how multitasking will make learning harder not easier. |
Constraints of mental effort and working memory | In class, provide a skeletal outline to guide students’ notetaking and pause between topics to allow students to catch up. |
Overall, the cognitive challenges framework can help teachers understand the reasons for students’ learning difficulties and adapt their teaching with the goal of bringing about optimal student learning.
For more information about the cognitive challenges framework, including many examples of teaching applications, see the Cognitive Challenges of Effective Teaching Video Series (https://tinyurl.com/yfgg8au3), short videos about each cognitive challenge and Barriers to Learning.
About the author
William Cerbin is professor emeritus of psychology and founding director of the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in cognitive, educational, and developmental psychology, and presented hundreds of faculty workshops on teaching and learning. He specializes in translating research in the learning sciences to help teachers improve their practice. He maintains Taking Learning Seriously, a resource for teachers which focuses on how research in the learning sciences can be used to improve teaching and learning. He also directs the Lesson Study Project which trains and supports teachers to engage in lesson study practices to improve teaching and student learning.
References
Chew, S. L., & Cerbin, W. J. (2021). The cognitive challenges of effective teaching.The Journal
of Economic Education,52(1), 17-40.
Related and recent
American Psychological Association. (2022, May 20). Cognitive Challenges of Effective Teaching. https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psychology-teacher-network/introductory-psychology/challenges-to-teaching
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