Hello friends,
🙌Many thanks for reading The Quest #125, your weekly round-up of tips and insights to help you design and lead exceptional online sessions that your group members will love.❤️
If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe and receive The Quest straight to your inbox every Monday👇
I’ll be on the road in Portugal with my family for the next two weeks. While I’m away I’ll be sharing some of my most popular past newsletters with you including this one on reducing overwhelm in your virtual sessions.
Let’s jump right in!
🤯 Have you ever felt overwhelmed after an online session?
I had been sitting in front of my computer for an hour.
I was listening to our online course instructor tell us everything he knew on the topic. Like a Formula 1 driver, he was racing through slides, graphs, and frameworks. He came to a screeching halt. And the class was over.
My brain was about to explode.
I hadn’t moved a muscle in 60 minutes but I felt exhausted. The worrying thing was, I could barely remember what we had covered in the class.
I was suffering from cognitive overload.
I was trying to process more information than my working memory could handle. We suffer from cognitive overload every day as information becomes more accessible and abundant.
Overwhelm is quickly becoming a hallmark of online courses.
The problem is that as virtual facilitators and instructors, we may be contributing to cognitive overload without even realizing it.
That’s where facilitation comes in.
Whether you are leading a course, delivering a presentation, or hosting a meeting, there are facilitation strategies to help you reduce cognitive overload for your group members.
🤔What is cognitive overload and how do you avoid it when you lead groups?
That’s our Quest for this week🔎
👉3 Ways To Avoid Cognitive Overload by MasterClass
👉What UX Can Teach Us About Minimizing Cognitive Load
👉10 Ways You Can Make Content Delivery Less Overwhelming (and more interactive)
💡3 Ways to Avoid Cognitive Overload by MasterClass
A short article with a down-to-earth explanation of cognitive load theory.
They break down the causes of cognitive overload:
- Distractions —> social media and texts
- Split-attention effect —> confusing learning materials
- Expertise reversal effect —> assuming prior information that learners don’t have
And offer 3 ways to manage cognitive overload:
✔️Ask questions
✔️Eliminate personal distractions
✔️Focus on one task at a time (by far the one I find most difficult 😅)
Read the full article 👉here.
How do you manage cognitive overload?
🖥️Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability
My research on cognitive overload took me down some fascinating rabbit holes, including what we can learn from User Experience experts. That’s how I came across this article from the Neilson Norman Group.
It helped me understand the parallels between seamless website interface design and learning. My biggest takeaway from the article
👉There is no way to eliminate cognitive load entirely. And that’s not the goal.
👉We need “intrinsic cognitive load” to absorb new information and to learn.
👉You want to eliminate “extraneous cognitive load” – the processing that takes up mental resources but doesn’t help users understand the content.
Here are 3 tips they offer:
✔️Avoid visual clutter
✔️Build on existing mental models
✔️Offload tasks
Read the full article 👉here.
🗣️10 Ways You Can Make Content Delivery Less Overwhelming (and way more interactive)
I realized that all of the virtual sessions I lead are experiential, interactive, with lots of breakout groups and live group discussions.
But what if your focus is on delivering content?
How can you deliver a lot of content in a way that doesn’t lead to cognitive overload for your group members? That was what I explored with a course creator I coached last week.
Here’s a Twitter thread that I just published with facilitation tips for making online content delivery less overwhelming – including lectures, webinars, workshops, and presentations.
TL;DR – Facilitation advice for reducing overwhelm in your online groups
👉Give a warm welcome
👉Use prompt questions
👉Narrate responses
👉 Share your aims
👉 Invite engagement
👉 Share the agenda
👉 Use the chat
👉 Survey your group
👉 Ask for an action
👉 Check out
How do you make content delivery less overwhelming? Join the conversation on Twitter!
💌Thanks for reading The Quest
I always love hearing your feedback and suggestions. Just hit reply to share your thoughts and ideas.
If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe to The Quest 👉here.
If you enjoy The Quest, I’d appreciate it if you shared it with anyone you think might like it.
Creatively yours,
Whenever you are ready there are 2 more ways I can help you:
👉Custom coaching & team training. Book a free 15-minute zero-commitment call with me to see how I can support you and your team.
👉5-week Live Online Course. The Breakthrough Facilitation course gives you tools, personalized feedback, and a proven framework for designing and leading high-engagement live sessions. Join the interest list and be the first to get the fall 2023 cohort dates and discounts.
