Teaching · Related Services

See when the task asks the student to hold too much.

Tap a counter each time a step drops out. The summary gives a rate per 10 minutes and the supports that match what you saw.

Start an observationWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Related Services toolkit, $99 for 96 items.

The observation

One record per student and lesson. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Related Services$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
Overload events per 10 minutes, what was seen most and supports to try in the next lesson.
Who it is for
School psychologists, special education teachers and classroom teachers.
Format
Browser form with tap counters. One saved record per lesson; printed or as a blank form; CSV; export and import a file.
Access
$12 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 Related Services toolkit ($99) 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 Related Services space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
a few things held, the rest slip away
Drawn for this page. Working memory holds only a few things at once; when a task asks for more, steps drop out, and it looks like not listening.

How to use it

  1. Start a record with the student’s code.
  2. Note the activity, how many steps the instructions had and the supports already there.
  3. Tap a counter each time you see the behavior; note what came just before.
  4. Compare with a few classmates.
  5. Add one support, observe again and compare the rate.

Start an observation

Reading the observation

What the behaviors mean

Classroom studies of children with poor working memory describe forgetting instructions, losing the place in a task, partial recall and abandoning tasks, often mistaken for inattention. These are signs of overload, and many children show them when demands are high enough.

What helps

Reducing the load helps most: shorter instructions, steps written where the student can see them, worked examples, checklists and memory aids such as number lines or word banks. Practice on memory games alone has not been shown to carry over to schoolwork.

What it is not

An observation, not a test. It does not measure working memory capacity and does not identify a disability.

Sources

  1. Gathercole, S. E., & Alloway, T. P. (2008). Working Memory and Learning: A Practical Guide for Teachers. SAGE.
  2. Gathercole, S. E., Lamont, E., & Alloway, T. P. (2006). Working memory in the classroom. In S. Pickering (Ed.), Working Memory and Education. Academic Press.
  3. Melby-Lervåg, M., & Hulme, C. (2013). Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology, 49(2), 270–291.
  4. Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31, 261–292.

The example observation is made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.