World-Shaker

"Colleges have experimented with short-term social-media blackouts in the past. But Ms. Hill’s course, “Information and Contemplation,” goes way further. Participants scrutinize their use of technology: how much time they spend with it, how it affects their emotions, how it fragments their attention. They watch videos of themselves multitasking and write guidelines for improving their habits. They also practice meditation—during class—to sharpen their attention. Their professor, David M. Levy, sees these techniques as the template for a grass-roots movement that could spur similar investigations on other campuses and beyond. Mr. Levy hopes to open a fresh window on the polarized cultural debate about Internet distraction and information abundance."

—

You’re Distracted. This Professor Can Help.

And all I could think was “This would be an interesting MOOC.”

4 Ways to Increase Student Attention in the Age of Distraction →

Awesome article. Here’s one idea:

#1: Practice contemplative pedagogy

According to the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, the teaching methods ofcontemplative pedagogy help cultivate deepened awareness, concentration and insight. Some of the recommended practices, which research says can offset the distractions of multitasking and multimedia, include:

In-Class Contemplation, or taking a few minutes to focus on the task at hand. This might mean turning off the lights at the start of class and instructing students to take slow, deep breaths, relax and stretch their bodies, and “just let go” and be silent for a few minutes.

Journaling, when done at the beginning of class can help students determine what they have to offer to the class’s upcoming discussion, or when done in the middle can have a reflective and calming effect after intense debate and discussion. One professor has his students answer the question, “What matters here?” because it prompts them to take ownership of their learning.

Mindful e-mail involves acquainting students with the concept of mindfulness, having them observe without judgement their own e-mail behaviors, engaging them in honest and broad discussions on the application of mindfulness to an ubiquitous technology, and then asking them to craft and share a set of personal guidelines for mindful e-mail use.

Find many more ideas for incorporating contemplative pedagogy here and here.

Is Technology “Rewiring” Young People’s Brains? →

That’s a claim we hear a lot these days. It’s in the media, spoken by experts and pundits, and in the air, voiced by parents and teachers. Sometimes it’s uttered in alarm, by those concerned that children’s ability to learn and pay attention is being warped by the hours they spend in front of the computer. Sometimes it’s proclaimed in celebration, by others convinced that a generation of “digital natives” has developed new ways of absorbing and applying information.

In fact, research in cognitive science and psychology shows that both of these sentiments are misplaced. While it is true that our brains are to some extent “plastic”—that is, responsive to experience—it is also the case that there are biological constraints on how our brains operate. These constraints are universal, found across cultures and across generations. What follows is a brief primer on how attention and memory work, and how we can maximize their effectiveness.

This is a very fast, very fascinating read. 

Can College Students Resist The Lure Of Facebook, Twitter During Class? →

There’s quantitative support for concern about concentration in the classroom. One study showed that, on average, students at the University of Pittsburgh in Bradford said they read 2.6 texts per class and send 2.4, and that their learning probably suffers for it.

A larger survey of more than a thousand students at the University of New Hampshire revealed that only 20 percent of them said they send no texts during a “typical” class. A stunning 15 percent send more than 11 texts in a single class period.

View high resolution

What Multitasking Does to the Brain [INFOGRAPHIC]

Children with short attention spans 'failing to read books' →

infoneer-pulse:

More than four-in-10 teachers said children failed to read for pleasure at the age of 11, it emerged.

The study – by the publisher Pearson – found that many schools fear children have short attention spans and prefer to spend time online rather than reading a novel.

Teachers also said that books were not seen as “cool” by pupils and raised fears that parents are failing to do enough to promote a love of reading in the home.

» via The Telegraph

The Most Important Challenge For Colleges Isn't Price—It's Attention →

infoneer-pulse:

This is one of my favorite anecdotes: Last year, the University of Phoenix enlisted renowned Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen to record a lecture. The university reserved a harbor-view room for Christensen and populated it with young people, so that the camera operators could record their reactions.

Before he began to speak, Christensen noticed that the audience appeared unusually engaged and attractive.

“What school do you guys go to?” he asked.

“We’re not students,” a young man told him. “We’re models.”

When Christensen told me this story, I laughed. But the University of Phoenix is serious — and smart. Putting a Harvard professor in front of a lecture hall filled with models is an acknowledgment that, in a Web-recorded lecture, appearance counts — even the few seconds of cutaways to reactions from gorgeous, engaged “students.”

» via The Atlantic

Sidenote: More proof that the University of Phoenix is pretty skeezy. Fun fact: The University of Phoenix will not hire any of its graduates to teach for them because they’re not an accredited institution (see below for clarification).

Ninja Update: Got an email about my claim that the University of Phoenix is unaccredited. U of P is actually “accredited” by the Higher Learning Commission, which is kind of like saying you’re a doctor because you read a book on anatomy. The Department of Education actually threatened to revoke Higher Learning Commission’s status as an accrediting institution due to the fact that they seem to just throw it at anyone, specifically InterContinental University (http://chronicle.com/article/Inspector-Generals-Warning-to/63206/).

InterContinental University was approved for accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission, University of Phoenix’s accrediting institution, after being rejected by the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges, which accredited well-known diploma mills Duke, UNC and Alabama. </sarcasm>

With as much respect as I can muster on this subject: It’s my opinion that the University of Phoenix is not a credible school, I don’t respect their degrees or “accreditation,” and I would never hire one of their graduates.

PS: To the person who emailed, you never replied to the fact that the University of Phoenix is hiring models to replace students in their recorded lectures (skeezy), or that they don’t hire their own graduates (interesting that they don’t seem to trust the quality of their own degrees).

"It was only later that I realized the value of being bored was actually pretty high. Being bored is a kind of diagnostic for the gap between what you might be interested in and your current environment. But now it is an act of significant discipline to say, “I’m going to stare out the window. I’m going to schedule some time to stare out the window.” The endless gratification offered up by our devices means that the experience of reading in particular now becomes something we have to choose to do."

— Clay Shirky - How Will We Read (via bijan)

ilovecharts:

How To Focus in The Age Of Distraction

ADHD from A to Z: Everything you'd need to know →

Outstanding resource, especially for educators. They do a really great job of breaking things down into categories as well.

Are Online Behaviours Affecting Reading Skills? →

In my final weeks of school our class had our usual Tuesday afternoon guided reading session, where we get the opportunity to work on some reading text with a small group of children. One particular comment from a pupil has stuck in my mind, so I thought I would share some of my reflections with you.

Whilst exploring a text we came across a particular word that became the focus of our attention. Although the group had no problem reading and pronouncing it they didn’t know what it meant. I aimed to set the children off exploring the definition from the information we could acquire from the sentence and the text overall, we may have even cracked open a dictionary or two…

“We could just Google it!”

Click through to read the rest.