Resident, Department of Medicine, New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center.
Professor, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco School of Medcine.
MedEdPORTAL. 2020 Oct 2;16:10983. doi: 10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10983.
Cognitive load theory (CLT) views working memory as the primary bottleneck for learning, as it is limited in both capacity and retention. CLT delineates three types of activities that impose on working memory: intrinsic load, germane load, and extraneous load. These three constructs have practical ramifications for direct teaching, learning environments, and curricular design. CLT could help educators across health professions improve quality of teaching, especially in demanding and unpredictable workplace environments. However, few educational resources exist to familiarize clinical workplace educators with CLT.
We developed a 2-hour workshop focused on CLT's core concepts and practical applications, targeted at health professions' workplace educators. It featured large-group, small-group, and individual reflective activities. An end-of-workshop survey was administered, and a follow-up survey was sent to participants 2 months after the workshop.
A total of 134 educators attended the first two offerings of the workshop in two different states. Participants considered CLT as relevant to a variety of workplace teaching settings and activities. Participants' self-assessed familiarity with CLT on a 0-100 scale increased from a mean of 36 ( = 26) before the workshop to 59 ( = 17) after the workshop. At follow-up, participants scored an average of 85% on content knowledge questions. Approximately half of respondents to the follow-up survey stated they had made or planned to make specific changes to their workplace teaching leveraging tenets of CLT.
The workshop conveyed CLT concepts and primed participants to independently craft CLT-based interventions for their own teaching practices.
认知负荷理论（CLT）认为工作记忆是学习的主要瓶颈，因为它的容量和保持力都有限。CLT 划分了对工作记忆有影响的三种活动：固有负荷、相关负荷和附加负荷。这三个概念对直接教学、学习环境和课程设计都有实际影响。CLT 可以帮助医疗保健专业的教育者提高教学质量，尤其是在要求高且不可预测的工作环境中。然而，很少有教育资源可以让临床工作场所的教育者熟悉 CLT。
我们开发了一个 2 小时的研讨会，重点介绍 CLT 的核心概念和实际应用，面向医疗保健专业的工作场所教育者。它采用了大组、小组和个人反思活动。在研讨会结束时进行了问卷调查，在研讨会结束后 2 个月向参与者发送了后续调查。
共有 134 名教育者参加了在两个不同州举办的前两次研讨会。参与者认为 CLT 与各种工作场所教学环境和活动相关。参与者对 CLT 的自我评估熟悉程度从研讨会前的平均 36（=26）提高到研讨会后的 59（=17）。在随访中，参与者在内容知识问题上的平均得分为 85%。大约一半的后续调查受访者表示，他们已经或计划根据 CLT 的原则对自己的工作场所教学做出具体改变。
研讨会传达了 CLT 的概念，并促使参与者独立制定基于 CLT 的干预措施，以应用于自己的教学实践。
