Reforming A Database Course To Address Cognitive Load By Using Worked Examples

This paper is an experience report about a shift from traditional lecturing and homework to a partially-flipped model where graded homework was largely eliminated and replaced by more full-length exams. The course in question is a senior database course dealing with internals of relational database management systems. It is a multi-year study. Due to the cognitive load of many of the topics in this course, we shifted to a course delivery model that used an abundance of worked examples, and increased the level of active learning in the classroom. Students were surveyed for their opinion of the changes. Students were skeptical when the change was being considered; however, since then, the students are overwhelming in favor of the revised model. We discuss cognitive load theory and worked examples, and how they contribute to learning in the course. Several analogies between human memory and the storage hierarchy of a computer system are presented.