HOW YOU CAN

HELP YOUR STUDENTS

FACTS ABOUT BRAIN RESEARCH, CLASSROOM DISTRACTIONS AND STUDENT ATTENTION

Built on research, passion, & skilled teachers

M U L T I T A S K I N G A C T U A L L Y C A U S E S D I S T R A C T I O N

Attention is a variable commodity Declines happen 4-7 minutes into a lecture.

Active Learning Promotes Attention Engage students for 20-40 minutes & refresh attention immediately afterward.

Change Grabs Attention Brains notice change as a way of staying vigilant. Change up the way you teach.

~ Daniel Willington, Cognitive Scientist

Research shows that multitasking increases student error rate by 50%~ “Brain Rules” John Medina

50%

NEUROSCIENCE TELLS US THAT STUDENT FOCUS IS A LIMITED RESOURCE. Like the rest of our bodies, our brains consume energy, drawing on glucose and oxygen as fuel. Controlled attention is very hard work, drawing heavily on the prefrontal cortex. Activities such as analyzing, prioritizing, planning, and other types of critical thinking are energy guzzlers. As energy supplies dwindle, brains get tired. ~ Edward M. Hallowell Author & Psychiatrist

Average number of times, per hour, we check our email inbox.- Statistic Brain

30

Average number of windows open on a computer at the same time.- “The Overflowing Brain Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory,” Torkel Klingberg

8

How long it takes to return to task after being interrupted or distracted.- University of California Irvine

MINUTES23

How frequently the average person is interrupted or distracted. - University of California Irvine

MINUTES3

DO THESE THINGS & YOU WILL GET BETTER RESULTS HELPING KIDS STAY FOCUSED!

KEEP LESSONS SHORT AND GIVE KIDS TIME TO SHIFT from lesson memorization/analyzing to other types of learning in one long period of time.

DON’T LET LAPTOPS AND CELL PHONES DISTRACT in any way. Keep laptops closed until they are really needed.

CELL PHONES SHOULD BE PUT ON AIRPLANE MODE (teacher checked) during class-time. Buzzing, vibrating, or other things phones can do are distractions.

CLASSROOM TIME SHOULD NEVER BE INTERRUPTED by intercom school announcements (except in emergency).

ALLOWING EAR BUDS IS SIMPLY ALLOWING KIDS TO BE DISTRACTED rather than focusing. (Remember multitasking is really changing focus rapidly, not learning better!)

THE STUDENT BRAIN REMEMBERS HOW YOU TEACH and over time can automatically choose distraction over focus. Find ways to constantly change your teaching delivery to refresh the brain memory of your students.

KEEP YOUR DOORS CLOSED to keep the sound of the freeway from being a distraction.

ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO FOCUS BY PERSONALLY TALKING and teaching to one another rather than using technology to do so.

STUDENTS SHOULD HAVE A KINESTHETIC BRAIN BREAK every 25-30 minutes. Brain break activities do take about 1-3 minutes of class time to complete; however the efficiency of our students goes up when brain breaks are incorporated.

THE CLASSROOM SEATING ARRANGEMENT SHOULD BE FLUID, flexible, and organized. Teachers should be moving around the room and teaching from different vantage points.

MAKE ANTI-DISTRACTION RULES as school colleagues and enforce them together! *Distractions (and the misperceived value of multi-tasking) hurts the schools ability to get the most out of each of your students during long durations of class time. The choice to understand this research, and act upon it, makes our school exceptional and will differentiate us in a positive way. Start a conversation, with your colleagues, to understand how this simple information can produce amazing results. What can you do to lead this conversation?

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FINDINGS: The study used experiments to compare heavy media multitaskers to light media multitaskers in terms of their cognitive control and ability to process information…. When intentionally distracting elements were added to experiments, heavy media multitaskers were on average 77 milliseconds slower than their light media multitasker counterparts at identifying changes in patterns. In a longer-term memory test that invited participants to recall specific elements from earlier experiments, the high media multitaskers more often falsely identified the elements that had been used most frequently as intentional distracters. The researchers conclude that the experiments “suggest that heavy media multitaskers are distracted by the multiple streams of media they are consuming, or, alternatively,

that those who infrequently multitask are more effective at volitionally allocating their attention in the face of distractions.” The findings raise profound, still-unanswered questions about human cognition in the future: “If the growth of multitasking across individuals leads to or encourages the emergence of a qualitatively different, breadth-biased profile of cognitive control, then the norm of multiple input streams will have significant consequences for learning, persuasion, and other media effects. If, however, these differences in cognitive control abilities and strategies stem from stable individual differences, many individuals will be increasingly unable to cope with the changing media environment.”

COGNITIVE CONTROL IN MEDIA MULTITASKERS”Ophira, Eyal; Nass, Clifford; Wagner, Anthony D. PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 24, 2009. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0903620106.

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ABSTRACT: “Electronic communication is emotionally gratifying, but how do such technological distractions impact academic learning? The current study observed 263 middle school, high school and university students studying for 15 minutes in their homes. Observers noted technologies present and computer windows open in the learning environment prior to studying plus a minute-by-minute assessment of on-task behavior, off-task technology use and open computer windows during studying. A questionnaire assessed study strategies, task-switching preference, technology attitudes, media usage, monthly texting and phone calling, social networking use and grade point average (GPA). Participants averaged less than six minutes on task prior to switching most often due to

technological distractions including social media, texting and preference for task-switching. Having a positive attitude toward technology did not affect being on-task during studying. However, those who preferred to task-switch had more distracting technologies available and were more likely to be off-task than others. Also, those who accessed Facebook had lower GPAs than those who avoided it. Finally, students with relatively high use of study strategies were more likely to stay on-task than other students. The educational implications include allowing students short ‘technology breaks’ to reduce distractions and teaching students metacognitive strategies regarding when interruptions negatively impact learning.”

FACEBOOK AND TEXTING MADE ME DO IT: MEDIA-INDUCED TASK-SWITCHING WHILE STUDYING”Rosen, Larry D.; Carrier, L. Mark; Cheever, Nancy A. Computers in Human Behavior, 2013, Volume, 948-958. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.001.

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