Difficulty vs Time

So often, our learning intentions are understandably based on content coverage and/or skill development. With the high levels of diversity in our classrooms, many ākonga can struggle to get started, which then means that they often struggle to finish on time. If there were 3 types of ākonga (caricatures) I’d like to see vanish from our classrooms, they would be:

Early Finishers (bored and under-challenged)

Late Finishers (stuck and overwhelmed)

Never Finishers (disengaged, defeated, (educationally) depressed)

While this can be achieved using the “Station Rotation” model with well-scaffolded resources, in situations where some poor learning habits have become embedded over time, we might also need to look at the design of the task regarding Cognitive Load or Task Difficulty and how this is managed over the allocated time.

When we focus on “Autonomous Task Completion” as a key design feature of a Learning Experience, the learner starts to believe more in themselves and becomes less dependent on their kaiako. In addition, their focus and momentum improve, meaning that they are then able to:

• Achieve more

• In less time

• To a higher standard

The graph below shows how we can consider the cognitive load and level of challenge when designing our learning experience. As Kevin Honeycutt once said:

“Let’s create multiple, smooth on-ramps for learners”

Click here for an example of how a simple writing task was quickly redesigned to have more scaffolding and a tighter focus on Autonomous Task Completion.