Cognitive Task Analysis

Effect Size 1.29

Definition

Cognitive task analysis (CTA) is a type of task analysis aimed at understanding tasks that require a lot of cognitive activity from the user, such as decision-making, problem-solving, memory, attention, and judgement. This is attending to the steps students should be using to think through the mental demands of a task.

Age Appropriateness: K-1

Steps in Lesson Delivery for CTA:

Teach first - Post learning objective, activate prior knowledge. Before you ask the question, teach the concept and needed skills so students are equipped to respond. Identify steps in skill work so students understand the process to use. Guide their practice while discussing below.
Ask a high level question- specific to what you just taught
Pair-share- with a partner so students practice their response to the question.
Pick a non-volunteer -to verify that everyone is learning.
Effective feedback- explain or review based on student responses.
Closure and relevance discussed

How it Works: (one example)

Explicit Direct Instruction Approach provides for Cognitive Task Analysis: Explicit Direct Instruction lessons provide this influence in two ways—pair-shares and steps. Teachers are encouraged to ask higher-order questions that challenge the way students think about the content and help them monitor and practice their thinking in pair-shares. Secondly, every lesson identifies steps for performing the skill. This aids the students in managing how they think about a problem.

Other Examples of Cognitive Task Analysis:

Research paper
Project-based learning
Teaching life skills (students with IEPs)

When to Use:

It is also essential to determine the skills a learner must already have in place in order to successfully complete the task analyzed skill. These skills are referred to as prerequisites.
Once the prerequisite skills are identified, the instructor should also list any materials that would be necessary to complete the task.

Benefits:

Task analysis is the process of breaking a skill down into smaller, more manageable components.
Guided practice and explicit feedback given to support skill/concept mastery
Once a task analysis is complete, it can be used to teach concepts that are too challenging to teach all at once.
Deeper Learning promoted

Adapting Socratic Seminar: Senior Project Reflection12th grade ELA teacher Johanna Paraiso has students adapts the Socratic Seminar format when having her students reflect on their senior research projects and presentations. Before this class, students participated in a culminating presentation. They begin class by reviewing everyone's feedback and discussing what they noticed. Finally students look at their own feedback and reflect on their learning.

Pattern Folders: A Literary Analysis ToolHigh School ELA teacher Sarah Brown Wessling has students explore themes in a text by organizing textual evidence and drawing conclusions about the text. After reading a text, students identify themes and collect textual evidence around each theme. Each student gets a folder with a pocket for each theme. Students write textual evidence on note cards and place them in the corresponding pocket. The next day, students read the note cards in each pocket and draw conclusions about the text.

Launching a Fractions TaskPatricia Linares presents her students with a real-world task about chocolate bars. She takes them through the Rodel 20/20 three-phase lesson structure, activating background knowledge and makign sure they understand the problem before moving into solving it themselves.

Cognitive Task Analysis Resources

Videos

Good Thinking! — That’s so Meta (cognitive)!