The cognitive load conundrum: how calculators can help

Jan 2025 Medium Read: 5 Min

Cognitive load theory is a concept that has grown in importance for many teachers in recent years.

It argues that, since students only have so much working memory they can dedicate to a task at any one time, lessons should be planned and delivered in a way that minimises unnecessary distractions.

We recently had the chance to discuss this topic with Joely Fashokun, a former secondary school maths teacher who now lectures in maths at the University of Brighton School of Education.

Joely told us that, in her experience, cognitive load theory has become a crucial part of how trainee maths teachers are shown the most effective ways to plan lessons and design questions for their students.

She also shared her insights into how calculators can ease cognitive load and thereby reduce stress and other difficulties, not just for students but for teachers too.

Cognitive load and calculators

Being able to manage cognitive load can make a big difference to the average secondary school student’s educational journey, not least because they will end key stage 4 with the challenge of GCSE examinations.

That means navigating multi-step questions, understanding carefully worded problems, retrieving mathematical knowledge and applying it properly to get the right answer.

All of this places heavy demand on mental energy and working memory. What’s more, it doesn’t even take into account exam-related stress, anxiety and the many other potential distractions that could be playing on a typical student’s mind on exam day.

So when it comes to easing cognitive load, Joely recommended taking full advantage of any tools and technologies that can help. Calculators are at the top of that list.

Speaking about how she manages her own cognitive load, Joely said she uses a calculator to perform routine tasks and arithmetic, while she focuses on the problem at hand.

“It’s about keeping your attention on the actual maths you’re trying to complete,” she said. “For example, if you’re trying to answer a complicated trigonometry question, you want to focus on the trigonometry and what you understand about that topic, so you can use the calculator to aid with standard calculations and numerical arithmetic.”

Aiding all abilities

Making efficient use of a calculator to reduce cognitive load is something that can help students of all abilities.

Higher-achieving students can use their handset for routine maths while they concentrate on the advanced conceptual understanding and problem-solving they will be expected to show in exams.

But crucially, lower-attaining students can also rely on their calculator to free up some mental capacity, which they can use to focus on the maths they find the most challenging. This could offer opportunities to introduce these students to topics that may have otherwise been left out of their learning plans.

“Using a calculator can really help those students to learn by aiding with routine calculations, so they’re not bogged down with things like arithmetic errors,” Joely said.

Practical calculator applications

To put these ideas into context, Joely gave us some examples of specific functionality on Casio calculators that can help take some of the mental pressure off students when they’re working.

One common activity where users can get a lot of support from a ClassWiz scientific calculator is writing numbers as products of prime factors and finding their highest common factors.

Students might struggle in situations such as not having fully simplified an algebraic expression, or having to solve an equation with large numbers where the highest common factors aren’t immediately obvious.

“Knowing how to do this on their Casio calculator means students don’t have to write out lists of all the different factors of their numbers,” Joely said. “They can just jump straight in and use that functionality to find the factors they need.”

Another tool that can both improve understanding and serve a purpose in exams is the number line feature available on the fx-83GT CW and fx-85GT CW models in the ClassWiz range.

This provides a visual representation that helps with solving inequalities and comparing numbers. Even when students need to display a written method – when solving a simultaneous equation, for instance – they can use the number line visualisation to check their answers and relieve some mental pressure in exams.

Easing exam strain

Cognitive load is something teachers need to consider in every lesson. It’s in exams, however, that this issue can really come to the fore and students need to take responsibility for managing it themselves.

In an A-level maths exam, for example, students could find themselves faced with a nine-mark mechanics question with an entire page of written context and modelling.

When dealing with this topic in particular, students will need to think about how the wording of the question is guiding them towards the mathematical approach they should take.

They might need to solve a quadratic equation, which any A-level maths student can do, but having to go through multiple lines of written work to find the solution can use up valuable time in an exam.

“If you can use your calculator to solve the equation for you, it just relieves the pressure and you can focus on the actual mechanics,” Joely said.

Joely also stressed the importance of building up fluency with basic operations on the calculator, such as using the Ans key to access the latest calculated result.

The years students have spent building these fundamental skills and learning how to use their calculator quickly and comfortably can really pay off in exams.

Resources that can help

On the subject of calculator fluency, Joely recently collaborated with us on a selection of teaching resources designed specifically to improve these capabilities and address some common misconceptions about our scientific calculators.

These five worksheets are available to download now on our ClassWiz help page.