Professional Development and Cognitive Load

Put simply, cognitive load is the mental strain that we experience on the finite resources of our working memory. We argue that the cognitive load teachers face in the classroom is an imperative consideration when designing effective professional development.

School leaders spend huge amounts of time working to help teachers to get better at their jobs. They do this because they know that high quality teaching is one of the most important levers in raising attainment (Chetty et al., 2010, 2014; Rivkin et al., 2005). Yet, many of our efforts to help teachers get better can raise their cognitive load - at least in the short term - in ways that make the task of improvement overwhelming. So we must carefully consider how to mitigate this as part of our work. It’s our contention that if we want Professional Development that really helps teachers to improve, we must consider the implications of cognitive load - and how to help teachers manage it - in PD design and delivery

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