Latest Issue of the MindBrainEd Think Tank + (ISSN 2434-1002) 3 MindBrained Bulletin Think Tank Work Mem Mar 1 2 | Page 4

Within our phonological loop, due to a capacity of only a few seconds, information
will decay should the inner rehearsal stop or be broken through interruption, so
really, with all the distractions of our modern world around us, it’s surely not
surprising that the shopping bag is somewhat lighter that expected upon arrival back
home.
Although no one is exempt from the working memory’s short-term temporariness,
some people will be far better at holding and manipulating more information at one
time than others. The amount of information we are able to hold and process within
our working memory is called working memory capacity and, like any other skill,
within a classroom there will be a wide range of abilities. So what does this mean
within our classrooms, and what can we do to help our students learn without
creating unnecessary stress, or cognitive load?
As teachers, we should be aware that, due to differences in capacities, our students
will become overloaded at different stages of the class, as the increased mental
activity acts as a bottleneck through which information must pass. The key to
creating a classroom conducive to learning, in terms of reducing cognitive load, is to
create a stress-free area to reduce anxiety. After all, anxiety builds further cognitive
load, causing more anxiety, causing further…you get the picture!
By reducing teacher talking time, giving
wait time, breaking up information, and
repeating content, we can aid in the
building of confidence and reduction of
anxiety. Also, teaching how to respond
to reading comprehension tasks, how to
handle auditory tasks, look for
keywords, and to skim properly, can all
reduce the stress of testing, reducing the
amount of mental activity imposed and helping to prevent overload within the
working memory. Attempts to rid the class of the ever-present distraction of phones
would also reap huge benefits, as any information held in the highly limited-space
working memory interrupted by an arriving message will quickly be replaced. Good
luck with that one though!
The key to creating a
classroom conducive to
learning, in terms of
reducing cognitive load,
is to create a stress-free
area to reduce anxiety.
Although, should we wish, it is relatively easy to find out the range of our working
memory capacity, it is debatable whether we are actually able to “train” to increase
this capacity. Considering the inner ear’s limited time capacity, and the sheer
amount of distractions around us at any one second, to avoid last-minute changes to
dinner plans, it’s best to stick with the tried and tested method of writing a shopping
list. Now where did I put my pen…?
Mike Kelland, the publications chair of the JALT Mind, Brain, and Education SIG, is a professor of
English at Tokai University in Japan. He currently writes and presents on research in working
memory and working memory capacity.
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