#IAMSE17 Plenary Speaker Highlight: Jimmie Leppink

The 21st Annual IAMSE Meeting is just around the corner, and we would like you to get to know some of our keynote speakers! We have four plenary speakers this year, and we hope you enjoy their presentations.

Jimmie Leppink: Managing the load on a learner’s mind: a cognitive load theory perspective [Maastricht University]

Throughout their curriculum, learners in domains like medicine encounter situations in which they must deal with a heavy information-processing load or working memory load. Cognitive load theory was developed for this kind of situation. In cognitive load theory, learning is the gradual development of cognitive schemas. As our schemas of a particular content or procedure become more elaborate, the intrinsic cognitive load on our working memory when dealing with that kind of content or procedure decreases. Simultaneously, when dealing with that content or procedure, cognitive processes that do not contribute to learning constitute an extraneous cognitive load on our working memory. The more extraneous cognitive load, the fewer resources we have available for dealing with the intrinsic cognitive load. Given that successfully dealing with intrinsic cognitive load results in learning, cognitive load theory dictates that education should be designed such that extraneous cognitive load is minimized and learners are stimulated to optimally allocate their resources to dealing with the intrinsic cognitive load. This plenary will focus on evidence-based cognitive load effects that have a variety of implications for how to design instruction and assessment.

For more information on Dr. Leppink, please click here.

Be sure to Save the Date for the 2017 IAMSE Meeting! The Meeting will be held in Burlington, Vermont on June 10-13, 2017.