Conserving Glucose & Reducing Cognitive Overload

“The human brain depends on glucose as its main source of energy. The neurons in our brains have the highest energy demand, requiring continuous delivery of glucose from blood. In humans, the brain accounts for ~2% of the body weight, but it consumes ~20% of glucose-derived energy making it the main consumer of glucose (~5.6 mg glucose per 100 g human brain tissue per minute)” - Philipp Mergenthaler, Ute Lindauer, Gerald A. Dienel, and? Andreas Meisel, 2013.

When we have to absorb new information, it is similar to hiking up a hill - our body uses a lot of energy and gets exhausted!?

The frontal cortex part of our brain requires considerable effort, and therefore uses a lot of glucose. If we have to pay attention for an extended period of time or if too much new information keeps coming our way, our brain uses more glucose, leading to exhaustion or ‘cognitive overload’. Contrast to this, when our brain performs a familiar task, it uses less energy and does not get exhausted frequently.

When we experience cognitive overload, our brain switches out and gets distracted. This is why, oftentimes in classrooms, you hear teachers asking students to ‘pay attention’. Forcing students to pay attention is like asking them to drag their exhausted bodies uphill.?

To reduce the cognitive overload, it’s important that we understand the mental models students have and then connect the new information to these models.?

In the previous article, we read about association as a powerful memory aid. Every time we learn something new, we associate the new learning with what we already know, and we ‘construct’ a new schema. Schema is a mental structure that explains how we organize knowledge.?

When we help learners integrate new information with old information, we can reduce cognitive overload. The more associations you can make with old information, the stronger the neural connections.

Integrated curriculum or teaching connects two or more subjects, and focuses on making connections for students, across subject areas or disciplines. The goal is to provide an opportunity for deep learning – a wider and deeper understanding of concepts, as they exist in the real world. Integration also allows us to use real world context, making the learning experience engaging and interesting for students, thereby eliminating occurrence of any cognitive load.

Let’s take the example of Newton’s second law of motion.

Experience 1: One way of teaching would be to integrate Newton’s second law of motion (Physics) in your Physical Education (PE) class.

Newton’s second law states that the velocity of a body can be changed through the addition of force. Ask students to experience this by attaching a resistance band to their upper leg, while walking.

When you integrate physics with PE, you make the abstract learning concrete and experiential; the brain focuses on the interesting part of walking with resistance bands and associates Newton's second law with resistance bands.?

Experience 2: Another way of teaching would be to write Newton’s second law on the board and then show examples of the same to explain the concept to students.

Which learning experience would you prefer?