Teaching · For Tutors

Make the lesson lighter, so the learning can be heavier.

Check one lesson or handout against ten practices that keep working memory free for what matters. Note how new the material is to the student. The summary scores the lesson and names the three changes to make first.

Check a lesson What you get

$5one-time · every device you sign in on

Buy · $5

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Tutoring business kit, $69 for 64 items.

The lesson check

One record per lesson or handout. Use a short lesson code. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · For Tutors$5 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with: For each lesson, a score, the three changes worth making first, what already works, and the reasons behind them.
Who it is for: Tutors and teachers designing explanations, worksheets and slides, especially for students meeting material for the first time.
Format: Browser form. A saved record per lesson, to compare before and after a rewrite; printed with the summary or as a blank checklist; CSV; export and import a file.
Access: $5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Tutoring business kit ($69) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives: The For Tutors space in Caveat Teaching.
Support: Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

Drawn for this page. Working memory holds only a few new things at once; good lesson design leaves out what does not help.

How to use it

Add a record with a short lesson code and the date.
Note the topic, the format and how new the material is for this student.
Mark each of the ten practices.
Read the three changes to make first.
Rewrite, then check the new version in a new record.

Check a lesson

What the checklist is for

Why load matters

Working memory can hold only a few new pieces of information at once. When a lesson spends that capacity on searching between a key and a diagram, decoding a busy page or solving problems with no model, less is left for understanding the idea itself.

Worked examples, then fading

Students new to a topic learn more from studying worked examples than from solving problems straight away. As they gain skill, partly completed examples and then independent problems work better. For students who already know the material, full examples can become redundant.

What this is not

It does not judge the student. It checks the design of one lesson for one kind of learner.

Sources

Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., and Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 261 to 292.
Kalyuga, S., Ayres, P., Chandler, P., and Sweller, J. (2003). The expertise reversal effect. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 23 to 31.
Mayer, R. E. (2021). Multimedia Learning, 3rd edition. Cambridge University Press (coherence, spatial contiguity, redundancy and segmenting principles).
Pashler, H., et al. (2007). Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning (NCER 2007-2004). Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

The example lesson is made up. The checklist looks at a design; it does not grade the student or the tutor. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.