Coaching practices for Working Memory Dual Channel

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Working Memory Dual Channel, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I try to read the slides while the lecturer is talking and somehow take in neither
• When I’m teaching something visual I cram the slide with a busy diagram and a wall of text on top of it, and I can see people’s eyes glaze over trying to read and look at once
• My eyes keep bouncing between the diagram and the caption way off to the side, and by the time I find which part the text means I’ve lost the thread
• I figured more is better, so I cram in every word and every image at once and narrate the picture line by line
• My day is a constant flicker between unrelated things — email, then the report, then a call, then back — and every jump leaves me fumbling for a second to remember where I even was, so I end the day drained with little to show.

Practices that may help

1. Keep verbal and visual channels separate
   Avoid presenting spoken narration and dense text at the same time.
   Working Memory: How Your Brain Holds Thoughts in Play
2. Use spoken audio for explanations paired with visual diagrams
   Split visual and auditory working memory resources to process more information than either channel alone can handle.
   Cognitive Load Theory: Learning Within Working Memory Limits
3. Dual Coding: Learn With Words and Pictures Together
   Dual coding, a theory developed by Allan Paivio, holds that the mind processes verbal and visual information through two partly separate channels, so combining words with relevant images gives a memory two routes instead of one. Controlled studies support that well-designed word-plus-picture material is learned better than words alone — provided the visuals carry meaning rather than decorate.
4. Working Memory: How Your Brain Holds Thoughts in Play
   Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch’s working memory model describes the cognitive workspace that temporarily holds and manipulates information — it is not just a buffer but an active system with limited capacity. Understanding its architecture explains why multitasking degrades performance, why certain study designs backfire, and how to structure learning to fit the brain.
5. Put words and pictures together, not apart
   Place labels on the diagram, not in a caption your eyes have to hunt for.
   Dual Coding: Learn With Words and Pictures Together
6. Cut redundant words when the visual already says it
   Do not narrate a self-explanatory diagram word for word — it overloads, not reinforces.
   Dual Coding: Learn With Words and Pictures Together
7. Train task-switching to reduce cognitive overhead
   Deliberately practice switching between related tasks to make transitions less costly.
   Working Memory: How Your Brain Holds Thoughts in Play
8. Eliminate split-attention effects
   Keep physically or conceptually related information together so learners don’t pay a working memory tax to integrate them.
   Cognitive Load Theory: Learning Within Working Memory Limits
9. Chunk information before asking working memory to use it
   Master the parts before combining them so assembly fits within working memory.
   Working Memory: How Your Brain Holds Thoughts in Play
10. Offload peripheral information to free working memory
    Write things down externally so working memory is free for thinking, not storage.
    Working Memory: How Your Brain Holds Thoughts in Play

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