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I try to come up with good feedback to students. It does frustrate me that often students don't read them!

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What Is ‘Transfer of Learning’ and How Does It Help Students? 

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What Is ‘Transfer of Learning’ and How Does It Help Students? 

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https://youtu.be/N8QfkT8L9lo

This is something new to me.

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What Is ‘Transfer of Learning’ and How Does It Help Students?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6PoUg7jXsA

Who wouldn't want championship-level memory ability?!

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Feats of memory anyone can do | Joshua Foer

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The surprising habits of original thinkers Ted Talk

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The surprising habits of original thinkers Ted Talk

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https://youtu.be/fxbCHn6gE3U

Very interesting!

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The surprising habits of original thinkers | Adam Grant

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Teaching for Critical Thinking: Helping College Students Develop the Skills and Dispositions of a Critical Thinker

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Teaching for Critical Thinking: Helping College Students Develop the Skills and Dispositions of a Critical Thinker

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This article is over 20 years old and it is still very applicable. I struggled from time to time encouraging students to apply critical thinking.

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Multitasking limits learning, I actually don't agree personally...

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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Attention is how the mind prioritizes. The brain's attention circuits stay busy throughout our waking hours, directing on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis where our limited cognitive resources are going to go, monitoring the information that floods into our senses, and shaping conscious experience. Attention is one of the most mysterious and compelling topics in cognitive science. Years of research on the subject are now paying off handsomely in the form of recent advances in our understanding of how these mechanisms work, on both theoretical and physiological levels. And the more we learn, the more we realize that these findings aren't just important for theory-building -- they offer myriad practical applications that can help people function more effectively across all aspects of life. Teaching and learning is one area where attention research is especially useful for helping us get better at what we do.

In my book Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, I foreground attention as the starting point for everything designers of college-level online learning experiences should know about human cognition. Without attention, much of what we want students to accomplish -- taking in new information, making new connections, acquiring and practicing new skills -- simply doesn't happen. And thus, gaining students' focus is a necessary first step in any well-designed learning activity, whether online or face-to-face.

But how does this principle play out in a contemporary learning environment littered with tempting distractions -- the smartphones that accompany students to class, social networks that let us reach out to friends around the clock, the sites for games, media, and shopping that beckon every time we open our browsers? It's especially concerning given how overly optimistic people tend to be about their ability to juggle different tasks. As psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simon eloquently explain in The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, human beings are notoriously bad at knowing what we can handle, attention-wise. Essentially, we lie to ourselves about what we notice and what we know, believing that we take in much more that we actually do.

For our students, this adds up to a serious drain on learning. And as learning environments become more complex, it is a drain they can't afford. Consider, for example, some forms of blended learning in which students master foundational knowledge outside of class, usually through online work, then spend class time on focused application and interaction with instructors and classmates. A tightly scheduled and synchronized system like this can work beautifully, but doesn't allow much margin of error for wasted time and scattered focus.

So what can we do about this situation? One strategy is to educate students about the limits of attention and just how much they miss when they choose to multitask. This, however, is easier said than done. Incorporating a learning module on attention is straightforward enough, but what would it take for such a module to be effective? First, it would need to be brief and to the point, reinforcing just a few crucial take-home messages without a great deal of history, theory or other background more appropriate to a full-length course in cognition. At the same time, quality control would be a major concern, especially for the module to be usable by an instructor without academic training in cognitive psychology. Just Googling for materials on attention brings up at least as much pseudoscience as reputable work, and without this solid scientific grounding, a module on the dangers of multitasking could easily devolve into a "Reefer Madness"-style experience, more laughable than persuasive.

Keeping these caveats firmly in mind, I've worked with my instructional designer colleague John Doherty to create a free-standing, one-shot online learning module called Attention Matters that instructors can drop into existing courses as an extra credit or required assignment. Besides being scrupulous about the science, John and I prioritized interactivity and use of the multimedia capabilities of online learning -- enabling us to show students, not just tell them, what distraction can do to performance in different contexts. Too many online learning activities consist essentially of glorified PowerPoint slides, so although there is a certain amount of text within our module, we put most of the emphasis on media, demonstrations, self-assessment and discussion.

As an example, we used a demonstration we called the "Selective Reading Challenge" to show students how attention mechanisms constantly filter incoming information, and also, how little we remember of information we don't attend to. The demonstration consists of a page of text, alternating lines of bold and regular typefaces. Students are instructed to pay attention to only the bold lines, ignoring everything else, then proceed immediately to the next page. In the "to be ignored" text, we hide a few stimuli that may break through to awareness -- a couple of common names (Michael, Emily, Stephen, Christina), that if they belong to you, will probably pop out, as well as a few attention-grabbing emotional terms (911, murder). After completing the "selective reading," students are invited to go back review the entire page of text -- bold and regular -- to see what they missed, and what they (likely) don't remember at all even though it was well within the field of vision.

Other demonstrations illustrate the dramatic slowdown in processing that takes place when we multitask among competing activities. We present an online version of the classic "Stroop effect" to illustrate how distraction -- even from other mental processes going on at the same time -- can make a simple activity slow and inaccurate. The task involves naming the colors of a sequence of multicolored words -- not a difficult task, except when the words are themselves color names. red, green, blue, and so on - that contradict the colors they are printed in. Lastly, we pulled in several video clips from around the Web to drive home the multitasking point. One shows a prank "driving test" in which unsuspecting students were told to text while navigating a practice course, with predictably disastrous results. Another classic clip called "The Amazing Color Changing Card Trick," created by psychologist Richard Wiseman, dramatically illustrates how attending to one part of a scene causes us to miss major developments going on in practically the same location.

These videos, activities and demonstrations form the anchor for brief, impactful student learning activities throughout the module. Students respond to discussion prompts asking them whether the demonstrations worked on them as predicted, and what they may mean for everyday attention. They also complete self-quizzes with feedback that target the different learning outcomes for each part of the module. At the end, they revisit what they have learned in a brief self-reflection and survey on attitudes and beliefs about attention and its importance for learning.

Attention Matters is an exciting project, offering us the opportunity to apply cognitive science in a novel and - we hope - useful way. The project also has a research component, through which we will be gathering data on student attitudes and beliefs about their own attentional capabilities, as well as on the frequency of different multitasking behaviors in their own lives.

There's another important side to Attention Matters, and that has to do with the collaboration between an instructional design expert and a Subject Matter Expert, or SME. Much has been written about the virtues of instructional design experts' pairing up with SMEs, and yet, such collaborations remain fairly rare within higher education. We hope that this project demonstrates the real benefits to be gained - perhaps motivating others to take the plunge.

It's still too early to know what the long-term impacts of Attention Matters are going to be, or to predict exactly what we might discover about student attitudes and behaviors around multitasking. But I do foresee that as seismic change continues to occur in higher education, we will see more educators entering similar new territory - collaboratively creating focused, technologically delivered learning modules that live outside of traditional courses and use learning theory and cognitive science as the basis for design. And in our case, we may be able to add to our arsenal of strategies for getting students to become better stewards of their own attention.

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Essay calls for professors to start teaching students about distraction and attention

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It's time for professors to move beyond complaining about how students are distracted by social media, writes Michelle Miller. Faculty members need to teach about why attention matters.

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Can millennials pay attention to classwork while texting, tweeting and being on Facebook?

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Can millennials pay attention to classwork while texting, tweeting and being on Facebook?

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The title of this article certainly caught my attention.

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Should mobile devices be encouraged in class? Trinity College, CC BY-NC-ND

It's hard not to notice the connection of today's youth to technology.

Fused to their smartphones around the clock, they prefer screens to paper and text message to speech; they consider leaving voicemail an act of interpersonal aggression.

They seem to focus differently too: skimming and sampling their way through multiple streams of data, they look like they're taking it in all at once.

Some educators call them "digital natives," reflecting the idea that tech is at the core of who they are and how they function.

If living with technology really has rewired this generation for multitasking, what implications does this have for how we educate them? Should we tolerate - or maybe even encourage - mobile devices in class? And should we worry when we see students keeping an eye on social media or other diversions while doing homework?

Why attention matters for learning

As a professor who specializes in course design, I deal with these questions frequently as I help fellow faculty devise better strategies. In this work, I draw on my research background in cognitive psychology, a specialization focusing on mental processes such as reasoning, memory and attention.

Of those processes, attention is one that I tell teachers to be particularly attuned to. Research shows that memory - especially working memory, which holds information we're using in the present moment - is deeply intertwined with attention.

Without sustained focus, we retain surprisingly little, and that window of focus is much narrower than we may realize.

So, are the minds of digital natives - or any heavy tech users - better or worse when it comes to attention? It's a complicated question, partly because attention works in some paradoxical ways.

The function of attention is to prioritize where we put our limited cognitive resources at any given moment. One thing attention does is keep irrelevant information at bay. Like a bouncer at an exclusive nightclub, its job is to ensure that only the most important and relevant elements pass through into conscious awareness.

But at the same time, a well-functioning attention system has to stay open to information that's in the background and could be potentially useful. That mental bouncer has to constantly scan the crowd for anyone who might turn out to be a great addition to the party, pick them out and usher them inside.

What technology does to the ability to pay attention

Technology seems to have a bigger impact on that second side of attention.

Certain kinds of tech use - habitually consuming lots of online media at once, or playing certain kinds of video games - appear to boost the ability to efficiently pick up on peripheral information while keeping up with a main task.

And although long-term studies are lacking, there is a growing body of research on how tech-saturated environments shape the minds and brains of kids.

It's unlikely that video games or online media damage kids' ability to pay attention. But comparative research across high-tech and low-tech societies suggests that information processing is different in kids who grow up working with digital rather than physical tools. Neither group is better or worse across the board, but this research suggests that high-tech kids may be less inclined to learn by watching for extended periods of time.

That said, we should be cautious about concluding that today's students have developed the ability to juggle as much technology as they want. Technology has not reshaped the basic ways in which our brains process information.

As cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham points out, the impact of things like video games is relatively subtle. All they can do is tinker around the edges of our mental systems, rather than altering them at the core.

As Willingham says, something as fundamental as attention couldn't be deeply reshaped without a major overhaul of the brain - something that would be a function of evolution, not life experiences.

All of this means that college teachers should be skeptical of claims that their game- and tech-obsessed students process information completely differently. Compared to earlier generations, today's students are probably no more able to learn while simultaneously engrossed in Twitter, Facebook and texting.

College students and technology

There are other pitfalls to consider.

Research with young adults in college suggests that they are neither as enthusiastic about technology nor as adept at using it as we may assume. Sometimes, they intentionally opt for lower-tech approaches; in one study of California college students, most said that they preferred paper over a browser for their own studying.

This is something my faculty colleagues commonly observe as well - that although their students may use technology like social media casually throughout the day, it doesn't translate to other tech-based tasks, such as navigating a course's online homework system.

Students also get into trouble if they assume - because of the "digital nativism" idea, or simple lack of self-awareness - that they can master demanding coursework while engaged in digital distractions.

Evidence suggests that multitasking - such as tweeting in class - reduces learning, or at the very least makes it take longer.

Even sitting next to a classmate surfing the web on his or her own laptop hampers learning.

In sum, despite that appearance of being fused to their devices, today's students aren't immune to the distraction those devices cause. And they don't necessarily want technology in every corner of their educational lives.

How college teachers can help

College teachers need to include lots of tech support for online assignments and other kinds of educational technologies, because even students who have grown up with computers still get stuck when using them in new contexts.

Teachers must also avoid the trap of adding tech to a class just because they assume digital native students want it. Educational technology can be highly effective, but only when it is tightly coupled to the teacher's goals.

Even better, teachers can help students understand for themselves how attention works - knowledge that everyone ought to have in today's distracting era. Without vilifying technology, teachers can work to raise students' awareness about how attention impacts learning more than we may realize, no matter what our age.

The effects of technology on cognition are intriguing, but they don't justify teaching millennials as if they were a new species. Teachers need to think twice about tolerating devices in class, except as part of structured activities that link to the lesson at hand.

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Can millennials pay attention to classwork while texting, tweeting and being on Facebook?

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From the look of it, the millennials appear to be very comfortable with technology. But are they as immune to the effects of digital distraction as some might assume - especially in the classroom?

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I really like this article!

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Jay McTighe has a varied career in education. He served as director of the Maryland Assessment Consortium, a collaboration of school districts working to develop and share formative performance assessments and helped lead standards-based reforms at the Maryland State Department of Education. Prior to that, he helped lead Maryland's standards-based reforms, including the development of performance-based statewide assessments.

Well known for his work with thinking skills, McTighe has coordinated statewide efforts to develop instructional strategies, curriculum models, and assessment procedures for improving the quality of student thinking. He has extensive experience as a classroom teacher, resource specialist, program coordinator, and in professional development, as a regular speaker at national, state, and district conferences and workshops.

McTighe is an accomplished author, having coauthored more than a dozen books, including the award-winning and best-selling Understanding by Design® series with Grant Wiggins. He has written more than 50 articles and book chapters and has been published in leading journals, including Educational Leadership (ASCD) and Education Week.
UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN® and UbD® are registered trademarks of Backward Design, LLC used under license.

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Upgrade Your Teaching: Understanding by Design Meets Neuroscience

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How can educators leverage neuroscience research about how the human brain learns? How can we use this information to improve curriculum, instruction, and assessment so our students achieve deep learn

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Work smarter!

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How to practice effectively...for just about anything - Annie Bosler and Don Greene

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https://youtu.be/ELpfYCZa87g

Nice overview of what Neuroplasticity is!

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After watching this, your brain will not be the same | Lara Boyd 

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After watching this, your brain will not be the same | Lara Boyd 

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https://youtu.be/LNHBMFCzznE

I do have a new understanding of how my brain work!

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After watching this, your brain will not be the same | Lara Boyd | TEDxVancouver

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Review the Lobes of the Brain Online Puzzle

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Review the Lobes of the Brain Online Puzzle

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This was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed this activity.