HomeBlogPublishing SoTL Cognitive Load Is Your Invisible Barrier by Sophie GrabiecMarch 31, 2026 Share: Section NavigationSkip section navigationIn this sectionBlog Home AI and Engaged Learning Assessment of Learning Capstone Experiences CEL News CEL Retrospectives CEL Reviews Collaborative Projects and Assignments Community-Based Learning Data Literacy Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity ePortfolio Feedback First-Year Experiences Global Learning Health Sciences High Impact Practices Immersive Learning Internships Learning Communities Mentoring Relationships Online Education Place-Based Learning Professional and Continuing Education Publishing SoTL Reflection and Metacognition Relationships Residential Learning Communities Service-Learning Signature Work Student Leadership Student-Faculty Partnership Studying EL Supporting Neurodivergent and Physically Disabled Students Undergraduate Research Work-Integrated Learning Writing Transfer in and beyond the University Style Guide for Posts to the Center for Engaged Learning Blog Even strong ideas become hard to navigate when they’re presented without clear structure or organization. Clarity isn’t just about word choice or sentence length. Have you ever read a piece of scholarship and found yourself struggling to understand it, not for the content or ideas themselves, but for the density of the paragraphs or because the layout was hard to follow? This extra effort adds to something called our cognitive load, or the mental work required to process and remember information (Mayer 2009). If readers must spend effort interpreting structure or decoding visuals, their attention shifts toward navigation and interpretation rather than engaging with the ideas themselves (Lazard and Atkinson 2015; Kostelnick and Roberts 2011; Schriver 2017; Lidwell, Holden, and Butler 2010). As we discussed in a previous blog post, even strong scholarship can lose momentum when presentation makes comprehension harder than it needs to be. Effective content design functions as scaffolding. It reduces cognitive strain so readers can focus their attention on meaning-making and interpretation (Mayer 2009; Goforth 2021, 2022). In other words, how you present your work directly shapes how well your ideas are understood. Why This Matters in SoTL The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) reaches diverse audiences through diverse means. As The SoTL Guide reminds us, SoTL invites “an expansive and inclusive view of what ‘doing SoTL’ might mean.” Research circulates through journal articles as well as conference presentations, faculty and staff workshops, teaching resources, blogs, social media, institutional reports, and other venues—all pathways for ideas and research to influence practice. In many of these spaces, scholars are responsible not only for the ideas themselves but also for how those ideas are presented. In all of these spaces, form is part of the argument. How readers encounter the work—its structure, layout, and visual hierarchy—shapes how they understand, remember, and apply the ideas. When readers use their mental effort to figure out the structure instead of engaging with the ideas, they’re less likely to carry those ideas into practice. Clear content design, then, shapes whether your SoTL research becomes usable. And isn’t that (typically) the goal? How to Design Complex Ideas to be Accessible If you pursue publishing SoTL in a long-form format, the reader knows they’ll likely spend some time with an article or book reading pages at a time. It’s important to ask yourself, (1) What did your reader/audience sign up for? and (2) How can you make sure readers walk away with the most important information? Communication design research shows that chunking, hierarchy, and structured comparison significantly improve interpretability and memorability. The argument becomes easier to follow (and is more likely to be remembered) because it is organized with human cognition in mind. Headings and visual hierarchy play a key role in helping readers navigate complex ideas. Clear section headings signal what each part of the text is doing, while consistent font sizes, line spacing, and how you express emphasis shows how ideas are related. This structure allows readers to scan for key points, anticipate what’s coming next, and return to important sections later. Instead of holding the entire argument in working memory, readers can rely on these visual cues to guide their attention, reducing cognitive strain, and making the overall argument easier to follow. (You may notice these principles in action in this very blog!) Below are two examples of how making content design choices that reduce cognitive load make ideas more accessible, memorable, and actionable. Example: Multi-Step Teaching Strategy Suppose you want a particular point in your book to stand out, or you’re adapting an article for a presentation or blog post, where readers will likely spend less time with the text. Here’s a relatively straightforward paragraph changed to be more “sticky” in a reader’s memory using a heading, list format, and emphasis: Before: This paragraph includes multiple substantial ideas in a list. Several studies suggest that using peer feedback can improve student writing, increase engagement, and develop critical thinking skills, but instructors need to provide clear guidelines, model constructive critique, and structure feedback sessions carefully to ensure effectiveness. After: The same information is separated into distinct units. This design choice allows readers to see the sequence at a glance, understand the rationale behind each step, and retain the process for later application. Steps for Implementing Peer Feedback: Set Clear Guidelines – Explain expectations for constructive critique Model Feedback – Demonstrate actionable, respectful comments Structure Sessions – Focus on key learning outcomes Reflect and Adjust – Refine based on student experiences Example: Synthesizing Research Here’s another example that takes a paragraph and reconfigures it into a more scannable structure using a table. Before: This paragraph synthesizes several studies while also explaining theoretical context and implications. Readers must hold multiple ideas in working memory while parsing the complex sentence structure. Several studies examining pedagogical partnerships highlight the potential for collaborative learning environments to reshape traditional hierarchies in higher education. They also suggest that faculty participants often report increased awareness of student perspectives and shifts in their teaching practices (Citation A), particularly in relation to classroom communication, feedback structures, and assessment design, although the literature notes that these partnerships require substantial time and institutional support to sustain meaningful collaboration over time (Citation B). After: The same material might appear in a table to better organize the information. This design choice: Breaks content into digestible units Makes relationships among findings explicit Supports quick scanning and later recall Connects ideas to actionable steps without oversimplifying Dimension Findings Implementation Notes Awareness of Student Perspectives Faculty report a deeper understanding of student needs and perspectives (Citation A) Incorporate student feedback in course design and class discussions Changes in Teaching Practices Adjustments in feedback, assessment, and communication methods (Citation B) Provide structured guidance for implementing new practices Understanding Collaborative Learning Recognition of the value and challenges of collaborative environments Allocate time and institutional support to sustain partnerships What These Examples Show In both examples, nothing about the scholarship itself changes. What shifts is how readers move through it. Ideas are broken into manageable units, visual hierarchy signals what matters most, and the relationships between concepts become easier to trace and understand. In this way, presentation guides interpretation, helping readers see connections clearly. This isn’t to say you should format your entire blog post, presentation, or article into a table or a bulleted list (that would actually increase the cognitive load!). But by selecting the ideas you want to make particularly clear, actionable, memorable, or as I’ve been calling it, “sticky,” these are some design choices to consider while you format your text. To be clear, reducing cognitive load is not about simplifying research. It is about creating more direct access to complex ideas. Thoughtful SoTL communication creates the conditions for readers to engage with ideas without unnecessary barriers of presentation. For SoTL, this attention to form matters because the field values research that can be readily taken up in teaching conversations, faculty development, and institutional practice. Using good content design principles can help those ideas move into action. Looking Ahead Accessible content design is important, but it’s only part of the equation—what matters just as much is anticipating how readers will move through a text. Even clearly structured scholarship is rarely read from beginning to end in a single pass. Instead, readers skim headings, move between sections, and return to ideas when they become relevant. In our next blog post, we’ll explore writing for scanning, dipping in, and non-linear reading. References Goforth, Jennie. 2021. “Academic Publishing: Creating Effective Tables.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), August 19. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/academic-publishing-creating-effective-tables/. Goforth, Jennie. 2022. “Academic Publishing: Diagrams, Photos, and Illustrations.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), January 18. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/academic-publishing-diagrams-photos-and-illustrations/. Grabiec, Sophie. “Communicating Your SoTL Through Content Design.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), February 17, 2026. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/communicating-your-sotl-through-content-design. Kostelnick, Charles, and David D. Roberts. 2011. Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators. 2nd ed. Pearson. Lazard, Allison J., and Lucy Atkinson. 2015. “Putting Environmental Infographics Center Stage: The Role of Visuals at the Elaboration Likelihood Model’s Critical Point of Persuasion.” Science Communication 37 (1): 6–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547014555997. Lidwell, William, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler. 2010. Universal Principles of Design. Rev. and updated ed. Rockport. Mayer, Richard E. 2009. Multimedia Learning. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316941355, Redish, Janice (Ginny). 2012. Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content That Works. 2nd ed. Elsevier Science. Schriver, Karen A. 1996. Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers. 2nd ed. Wiley. About the Author Sophie Grabiec is the Center for Engaged Learning’s Managing Editor, where she oversees the production of CEL’s books, open access resources, and blog. Before joining Elon University, she lived and worked in Washington, DC at Georgetown University, where she earned her M.A. in English and taught first-year writing. How to Cite This Post Grabiec, Sophie. 2026. “Cognitive Load Is Your Invisible Barrier.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), Elon University. March 31, 2026. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/cognitive-load-is-your-invisible-barrier.
