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Instructional Design Consequences of an Analogy between Evolution by Natural Selection and Human Cognitive Architecture
ARTICLE

ISAIJLS Volume 32, Number 1, ISSN 0020-4277

Abstract

Evolution by natural selection may be characterized as a system in which a large store of genetic information will persist indefinitely while it remains coordinated with its environment but will continuously produce small random variations that are tested for environmental effectiveness. In any environment, effective variations will persist while ineffective variations will disappear. Similarly, human cognitive architecture includes a large store of information held in long-term memory that coordinates our cognitive activities. A very limited working memory tests the effectiveness of small variations to long-term memory with effective variations altering long-term memory while ineffective variations are lost. Both an existing genetic code and information in long-term memory provide a central executive that guides behavior. Such a central executive is unavailable when an environment alters or when working memory must be used to deal with novel information. A major function of instructional design is to provide the otherwise missing structure of a central executive when dealing with novel information and to reduce that structural support as knowledge accumulates in long-term memory. Cognitive load theory both provides instructional design principles that would be difficult to devise without its particular view of human cognitive architecture and throws further light on that architecture.

Citation

Sweller, J. (2004). Instructional Design Consequences of an Analogy between Evolution by Natural Selection and Human Cognitive Architecture. Instructional Science: An International Journal of the Learning Sciences, 32(1), 9-31. Retrieved August 9, 2024 from .

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