Teaching Young Students How to Overcome Cognitive Overload

Cognitive overload is a mental state where the working memory in the brain reaches capacity, becomes overwhelmed, and shuts down. It is caused by too much information coming into the brain, placing too great of a load on the brain, or a combination of these two factors. As educators, we know the signs: the deer in the headlights look or students saying “I can’t do it. I don’t know what to do.” Their work remains incomplete as escapism and procrastination sets in.

Too often, cognitive overload prevents the true capabilities of competent students from shining through. They know and understand the content being taught, but they have difficulty demonstrating their mastery of the material. I teach all of my students, including those with ADD or ADHD, how to recognize and handle cognitive overload as a necessary life skill. Here’s how I teach it to students in grades K–6.

Teaching Cognitive Load Theory to my students

I start by giving my students a high-level overview of working memory and cognitive load. To make it accessible, I use a visual of an old-style scale with working memory on one side and our cognitive load on the other.

With younger students, I use the analogy of cognitive capacity = total brain power and cognitive load = how hard their brain is currently working. When we are receiving information or tackling assignments, the weight of our working memory increases because we have to keep track of more and more information. As we are getting this information, our working memory passes it to our “brain power” (cognitive load), causing the “weight” of the working memory to increase. The weight increases because we are using more energy by thinking about what we must do to solve the problem or complete the task.

I consistently reinforce to students that when we know what to do and how to do it, the scale is balanced, as we are using an equal amount of energy and our brain feels confident about what it needs to do, even if it is a little challenging.

With this baseline in place, I move on to helping the student understand what happens when the brain is processing too much information or the task gets complex and becomes frustrating and confusing. First, I explain that when this happens, too much weight is added too quickly to our working memory, causing the brain to slow down as more and more weight is added and this triggers an imbalance. This means that the work becomes harder, and we become less confident and more confused about what to do and how to do it.

Finally, I explain what happens when we overload the brain with too much weight and the scale tips… the brain crashes and shuts down. I call this a cognitive overload hold. I make sure the students understand that this is what is causing us to freeze or procrastinate on the task. I provide students with two Brain Power Strategy cards - one that is filled in, and one that they complete themselves. You can download those below, along with a copy of a visual I use to teach working memory.

Helping Students Apply New Skills

Once students understand the concept of cognitive overload, we can begin talking about what to do about it. First, I have students use the Brain Power Strategy card, a graphic organizer based on Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, to label their current responsibilities in one of three categories:

Zone 3: Frustration Zone: My brain has frozen.
Zone 2: Growth Zone: My brain is working hard.
Zone 1: Independent Growth Zone: My brain is working.

Each category has reflection questions to help the student identify the cognitive load of the task and which zone it belongs to. This visual aid also provides students with the vocabulary to express what their brain is thinking or feeling.

I then explicitly scaffold the Brain Power Strategy card. At first, we work on identifying zones for tasks in just two classes or assignments. I ask the students to identify the tasks or assignments that are in their Zone 1 and to explain how they know. Starting with Zone 1 begins to strengthen their working memory and cognitive load management capabilities, as they actively think about what they know and feel about a task. Then we move on to identifying the tasks that are in their Zone 2. I have them use the sentence starters and reflection questions from the Brain Power Strategy card to help explain why something is causing them to use a lot of brain power, but they have not yet reached a cognitive overload state. Finally, we move on to identifying and explaining tasks that cause cognitive overload (Zone 3). 

Intermediate Ownership Over Cognitive Load Capabilities

In my experience, students demonstrate that they are ready to tackle the intermediate level of cognitive overload management skills when they consistently do the following:

• Show understanding that zone assignments can be fluid and it is normal for something that was in Zone 2 to enter Zone 3.
• Start to recognize patterns or commonalities around cognitive overload tasks. At the intermediate level, my students commonly notice that tests, long-term projects, and tasks with a lot of steps send them into cognitive overload.
• Develop the language skills to explain what they were thinking and feeling about certain tasks and why some tasks were harder than others.

At the intermediate level, we work together to do the following:

• Learn a growth mindset around cognitive overload to reframe how they see tasks
• Build a plan to get unstuck with assistance from a teacher or parent

The students and I practice switching into a growth mindset by practicing intellectually and emotionally acknowledging, Yes, this is really hard; I feel stuck; it is OK—this happens to everyone, even adults. This is key, as it gives the student back control of their mind and allows them to look for an entry point to get out of the cognitive hold state. We then build a plan for how to get unstuck by identifying just one thing they know about the assignment, or one thing they could do to create a plan, and break the task into chunks that are more digestible for their brains to understand, see, and work toward completing. The goal is to finish not the whole task, but rather one chunk at a time. We also start to work on strategies to prevent cognitive overload in the first place.

Advanced ownership over cognitive load capabilities

To help students develop the skills so they can independently get themselves out of a cognitive hold, I add one more tool to their skill set. After every completed planned task, I ask them to check in with themselves to see if they are still in the frustration zone (cognitive overload hold) or in one of the two growth zones, so that they begin to comprehend and feel the process the brain enters when it becomes overloaded. I also ask them to identify what works for them to prevent cognitive overload hold and what helps them to get out of a cognitive overload hold. Giving students the tools, language, and concepts they need to understand their brain and how it works dramatically improves their performance.

As their teacher, I noticed growth in my students’ overall confidence and emotional regulation, including the development of metacognitive skills. As they developed these skills, they began to use the strategy card to prioritize and make a plan, which helped them with the ability to initiate tasks as well. Additionally, I observed a decrease in procrastination and missed assignments. My students reported that they noticed a better understanding of what their brain could and could not handle, and developed knowledge of the strategies they could use if they entered Zone 3.