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The Wiley fellows, a group of distinguished instructors from Wiley's partner institution network, recently looked at current trends to predict how the experiences, expectations, and needs of students and faculty may change, and how institutions and programs might evolve as a result. Click on the infographic below to learn how higher education might look by 2025.

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2025: A Look Into the Future of Higher Education

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See how one group of university faculty members predicts the experiences, expectations, and needs of students and faculty may change, and how that will impact the future of higher education for institutions and programs in this infographic.

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Education

Higher education needs to address the problems it faces by moving towards active learning, and teaching skills that will endure in a changing world. Image: Vasily Koloda for Unsplash

Senior Director, Strategic Communications and Thought Leadership, Minerva Project

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Higher education is beginning to accept that traditional methods of teaching are ineffective - as demonstrated by the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve

Many people gain admission to higher education based on standardized tests that skew to a certain socio-economic class Image: Fairtest, College Board

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4 trends that will shape the future of higher education

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Higher education needs to reform by moving towards active learning, teaching skills that will endure in a changing world, and adopting formative assessment. Here are 4 higher education trends to watch out.

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https://www.cast.org/binaries/content/assets/common/publications/articles/cast-udlandthebrain-20220228-a11y.pdf

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BRAIN SCANS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS - CT, MRI, fMRI, PET - Neuroscience

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Interactive Brain | How the brain works & the impact of injury

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Take an interactive journey to see how the brain works and what impact an injury can have

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The human brain is one of the most incredible and intricate parts of the human body. In fact, it's capable of creating more ideas than there are atoms of the universe.

Did you know that the brain changes constantly through a process called neuroplasticity?

But, what is neuroplasticity?

Through neuroplasticity, the brain is consistently rewiring itself and modifying its connections. It can reorganize itself both in structure and how it functions.

Without neuroplasticity, we wouldn't be able to do many of the things that make us human. This includes learning, developing, and forming memories.

So if the brain is malleable, can we rewire it?

Can we "rewrite" patterns in our brain to improve well-being?

Here's everything you need to know about how neuroplasticity works. Plus, we'll show you how you can improve your brain's plasticity.

What is neuroplasticity?

Let's start with a plasticity definition.

Neuroplasticity is also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity. It's the brain's ability to reorganize and restructure itself on a cellular level.

This reorganization allows our brains to adapt to changes. These changes could come from:

New experiences

Environmental changes

Brain damage

Environmental pressure

Physiological changes

New experiences

How does neuroplasticity work?

The human brain consists of vast networks of neurons. These are the single individual working units of its structure.

Even the simplest of tasks require millions of interconnected neurons. These neurons function as connectivity networks to accomplish the action at hand.

The neural network is a unique and specific pattern of neural connections. They fire in equally specific sequences to allow you to accomplish different tasks.

From raising your hand to playing "Chopsticks" on the piano, they are always working. The ability of the brain to adapt is based on the alteration of existing neural networks. And the generation of new ones.

Psychologists have found that there are two primary types of neuroplasticity:

Functional neuroplasticity.This refers to the permanent structural changes in neural synapses. It's brought on by development and learning.

Structural neuroplasticity.This refers to the strength of the connections between neurons and changes to this strength.

Synapses between neurons alter through a process called synaptic pruning. This occurs mostly between early childhood and your mid-20s.

In this phase of nervous system development, synapses are removed.

5 benefits of brain plasticity

Neuroplasticity is beneficial to our cognition in every way.

It shapes our views of the world and how the brain works. It also impacts our:

Memories

Learning abilities

Subconscious beliefs

These are the five significant benefits of improving your brain plasticity.

1. Helps you learn new things

Every time you learn a new skill, you have your neurons to thank for it.

Activity-dependent neural plasticity is a form of functional and structural plasticity. It comes about due to the use of cognitive function and our personal experiences.

Essentially, it's the biological mechanism for learning and creating new memories.

2. Helps with depression

Neuroplasticity deficits are a possible contributor to conditions like anxietyand depression.

Studies show that the brains of people with depression indicate problems with plasticity. Plus, many antidepressants are believed to work because they promote neuroplasticity.

Experts suggest that certain lifestyle changes could cause neuroplasticity enhancement. In turn, this could potentially improve the symptoms of depression. These changes include:

3. Helps you engage in activities more thoughtfully

Mental exercises help create new connections between neurons and generate new brain cells. This develops plasticity.

It builds a functional reserve to guard against future brain cell loss. It also enables you to engage in activities more thoughtfully and consciously.

All mentally stimulating activities can help boost your brainpower and improve focus. This includes everything from Sudoku puzzles and reading to mindful breathing and math problems.

You can engage in activities that require manual dexterity. This includes activities like:

4. Aids recovery from strokes and other traumatic brain injuries

After suffering a traumatic brain injury, neuroplasticity can help you regain brain function.

A neuroscience study found that task-specific activities promoted stroke patients' recovery. It encouraged increased neurogenesis and neural plasticity.

5. Increases brain volume and memory

Improving your neuronal plasticity also boosts neurogenesis. This is the formation of new cells in your brain. This can boost your brain's volume considerably.

A high rate of neural plasticity strengthens the connections between these new neurons. This can further enhance your memory and learning abilities.

Key characteristics of brain plasticity

It was once thought that as we age, our brains' neural networks become fixed and rigid. But recent research shows that our brains never stop adjusting and changing.

Younger people are generally more sensitive to changes in their plasticity. But even seniors can learn new things and boost the plasticity of their brains as well.

If you play an instrument often, you're likely to become better at playing that instrument. This is due to your constant use of those neural networks.

Likewise, if you were to stop playing your instrument for a while, and you take it up again in a few months, you might find your playing rusty.

Although neuroplasticity is a promising scientific field, it does have its limitations. Brain plasticity cannot fix everything. Unfortunately, it cannot fix brain damage in severe cases.

For example, most of the evidence of neuroplasticity is around the cerebral cortex. When this area is damaged, other areas of the brain can often compensate for the loss.

However, the cortex cannot replicate the functions of more complex brain regions like the hippocampus.

Neuroplasticity is an ongoing process. It's hindered or promoted by factors like:

Practices such as neuroplasticity training can promote ongoing brain plasticity. They increase your brain's formation of strong synapses between neurons.

Neuroplasticity and psychology

People who undergo therapy need to learn vital new coping skills to handle life's challenges. As they do, they build new neural connections that promote lasting emotional regulation and resilience.

As you learn new habits, your synapses will replace the neural pathways that prompted unhealthy behaviors.

Once these synapses are removed, your counseling will rewire your brain. New coping mechanisms that you need to practice to turn into a habit will emerge.

Conditions such as depression and chronic stress have been associated with suppressed neurogenesis. Psychiatry experts believe that promoting this process could reduce their symptoms. It could even prevent the conditions in some cases.

Certain psychiatric medications can also improve neuroplasticity.

The reasons behind the efficacy of antidepressants were long thought to be a mystery. But today, neuroscientists know that they are at least in part based on brain plasticity.

SSRI and SNRI antidepressants often boost neuroplasticity. They may even reverse some of the negative effects inflicted on the brain during a depressive episode.

Often, boosting neuroplasticity can form part of a mental health treatment regime. Brains in the first stages of dementia use neuroplasticity to compensate for rapid cognitive declines.

Does neuroplasticity change with age?

As kids, our brains are more capable of change. Children are constantly learning and experiencing new things. This creates extraordinary changes in their brain's structure.

At birth, a baby's brain has 100 billion neurons. As the neurons mature, more synapses are made. When we're born, there are 2,500 synapses per neuron. But by age two or three, it's about 15,000 per neuron.

That's more than double the number of synapses of the average adult brain.

This explosion of synapse formation is called synaptogenesis. It plays a crucial part in early brain development.

Neuroplasticity continues to happen throughout our lifetime. But different types of plasticity are more prevalent during certain periods.

There are four main types of neuroplasticity observed in children:

Adaptive plasticity.This happens when children practice a skill or learn new information. It enhances skill development and recovery from brain injury.

Impaired plasticity.This type of neuroplasticity happens due to an acquired or genetic disorder. It's associated with cognitive impairment.

Excessive plasticity.Also known as maladaptive plasticity, this process involves the reorganization of maladaptive pathways. This can cause disorders or disabilities. The best example of maladaptive plasticity isfocal dystonia. It is a rare neurological disorder that involves involuntary spasms in small muscles in the body.

Injury vulnerability plasticity.This type of neuroplasticity involves the formation of harmful pathways in the brain. This makes the brain more vulnerable to injury.

As we age, the brain starts to remove synapses that it no longer needs. Old connections are deleted through synaptic pruning. This happens when we are about 2 to 3 years old, after the number of synapses reaches a peak level.

Our brain's plasticity is at its highest during the first 20 years of life. What's more, we are constantly losing neurons as we age.

But the adult brain can still create new neuronal connections. Neuroplasticity is not only prevalent in children.

With the right lifestyle, adults can increase their brain's plasticity.

How to rewire your brain with neuroplasticity training

Neuroplasticity training includes lifestyle choices that promote the regeneration of nerve cells. With regular practice, it helps to improve:

Let's look at five ways you can promote neuroplasticity.

1. Utilize brain games

Brain training exercises create targeted mental stimulation and activation. This reorganizes the connections between neurons and improves brain plasticity.

A study found that younger adults who enjoyed brain training games had better executive function. They also had improved memory, self-control, and brain-processing speed than their peers.

Nowadays, you can easily use apps like CogniFit and BrainHQ for mental stimulation.

2. Rest when you need to

A good night's rest helps to create lasting memories. It also generates synapses to store skills and information that you learned in the day.

3. Exercise regularly

Research shows that daily exercise is essential for focus, concentration, and mood. It's recommended that you get in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week.

Exercise boosts the density and size of cortical neurons. This can benefit:

Attention

Perception

Memory

There's even some evidence that it can delay Alzheimer's disease.

Physical activity also helps to decrease inflammation and improve your quality of sleep. Both of which are factors that can impact your cognitive function.

4. Adopt a healthy diet

Nutrition plays a role in so many areas of our lives, and it's important for brain health too. You can promote neuroplasticity by eating a healthful, anti-inflammatory diet. This should include plenty of essential antioxidants and brain-fuelling omega-3 fats.

Improving the health of your gut microbiome can also promote neuroplasticity.

Eat unprocessed foods with prebiotic fibers to feed the good bacteria in your gut. Consider adding fermented foods such as kimchi to your daily menu.

5. Connect with others

Positive social experiences prime our neural connections to make meaningful connections with others.

The more we make an effort to connect with and care for others, the stronger these impulses will become. And the more naturally we'll find ourselves gravitating toward our peers.

History and research of neuroplasticity

Let's take a look at both early and modern theories surrounding the concept of neuroplasticity.

Early theories

The idea that the brain is not fixed was first proposed by William James in 1890. Later in the early 1900s, the father of neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, used the term 'neuronal plasticity.' This referred to non-pathological changes in the structure of adult human brains.

In 1923, Karl Lashley performed experiments on rhesus monkeys. He noted changes in their neural pathways, which he believed was evidence of plasticity.

Then in 1945, Justo Gonzalo theorized that the central cortical mass was a 'maneuvering mass.' It could reorganize its functions with its neuroplastic properties.

Modern theories

One of the key founders of the modern field of neuroplasticity was Dr. Michael Merzenich. In the early 1970s, Merzenich conducted experiments to prove that the brain was fixed. He tried to prove that the brain was not capable of structural or functional change.

Interestingly, he proved his own theories incorrect. He discovered that the brain and its neurons are plastic. Lost skills stored in damaged tissue could be relearned in other parts of the brain.

Merzenich also found that the human brain has a 'cortical map' of the physical parts of the body. If one map was deprived of its information inputs, it could become active again in the future if other maps close to it were stimulated.

Merzenich suggested that neuroplasticity could happen beyond developmental periods and into adulthood.

In a study with Clinton Woosley, Merzenich tried to observe what happened in the brain when one peripheral nerve was severed and then regenerated. The pair micro-mapped the hand maps of monkeys' brains before and after severing the nerves and reattaching them.

They found that the brain maps could normalize their structure, even in response to abnormal inputs. This proved that the brain had to be plastic in order to reach this degree in compensation.

Merzenich was awarded the 2016 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for his work in discovering adult brain plasticity.

Healing the brain with neuroplasticity after trauma

People with varying degrees of brain trauma can recover full functionality thanks to neuroplasticity. Based on research published in Translational Research in Traumatic Brain Injury, the brain goes through three main phases of neuroplasticity after experiencing trauma:

Phase 1

Directly after the injury, neurons start to die. Cortical inhibitory pathways are decreased. This initial phase lasts 24-48 hours.

It may stimulate secondary pathways that had rarely been used before the trauma.

Phase 2

The second phase takes place a few days after the trauma. The activity of these cortical pathways changes from inhibitory to excitatory.

New synapses are created. Neurons and other brain cells replace the damaged cells to facilitate healing.

Phase 3

The final phase takes place after a few weeks. The new synapses continue to be generated to remodel the brain.

During this phase, therapy and rehabilitation can help the brain learn new neural pathways. This allows for the brain to reduce the effects of the trauma.

There are several medical treatments in development that encourage neuroplasticity after brain injury. There are also therapies involving stem cellsand gene expression being studied for their potential to treat trauma.

Neuroplasticity rehabilitation for stroke recovery

A stroke causes damage by cutting off the flow of blood to certain parts of the brain. This deprives the brain of oxygen and essential nutrients.

Depending on the severity of the stroke, volumes of brain cells may die. Brain volume may be reduced, and dysfunction may occur as a result. The recovery process after a stroke relies on the brain's ability to heal itself.

The brain works around the dead brain cells. It attempts to build other neural pathways to compensate for lost function.

Physical, occupational, and speech therapies are all designed to promote neuroplasticity. They encourage the brain to overcome any mental and physical deficits.

It's important to begin the rehabilitation process as soon as possible after a stroke. This will make use of the brain's natural increase in neural plasticity after the trauma.

Stroke victims can promote recovery by participating in therapies that:

Focus on massed practice. This is the consistent repetition of a movement or skill that promotes fast learning.

Include physical exercises and therapies to improve patient mobility and strength.

Reteach them the skills they will need to go about their daily lives. This includes standing up, basic personal hygiene, simple cooking, andcommunication skills.

Include speech therapies. This will enable patients to practice their language skills while stimulating their brains.

How can neuroplasticity help with anxiety and depression?

Depression and anxiety have both been linked to a decrease in neural plasticity in the brain.

Modern therapies are aimed at encouraging neuroplasticity. This is so that patients can learn valuable coping skills for life's many challenges.

Neuropsychiatry's understanding of neuroplasticity can be summed up as follows:

Our daily behaviors can have remarkable effects on the structures of our brains. Anxiety and depression can, at least to a degree, be "unlearned." Their tendencies can be replaced with more constructive pathways through professional neural training.

COVID-19 PTSD is set to become a significant public health concern in the future. Prolonged exposure to stress and anxiety can lead to PTSD. But therapies focusing on promoting neural plasticity may induce positive plasticity.

This could help combat these conditions before they have a chance to develop into a disorder.

Simple neuroplasticity exercises can all promote neural plasticity. These include:

Regular exercise

Healthy diet

Connecting with your loved ones

They also help reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Experts recommend activities like learning a new language or skill. You could also perform a manual motor activity like painting or building a model. Or you can try playing brain-training games to promote neuroplasticity training.

The power to change your mind

Neuroplasticity and synaptic plasticity are intrinsic in every facet of our lives. Our brains are constantly performing synaptic pruning and making new neural connections. This is true regardless of what we happen to be doing at any given time. Or even whether we are awake or asleep.

Improving your brain's plasticity will sharpen your memory, concentration, and cognitive skills. Plus, it can help you address depression and anxiety. It may even promote healing in the case of adult brain trauma or injury.

BetterUp Coaches can help you understand the amazing ability of your brain to constantly learn. Coaching can guide you with how to put plasticity to work to your advantage to change behaviors and show up at your best. Use your brain's innate healing abilities to perform better and unlock more of your human potential.

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What is Neuroplasticity and Why is It Important?

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The human brain is constantly building new connections using its neuroplasticity. Read on to learn about what neuroplasticity is and how it benefits you.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

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Unlearning Neuromyths — The Learning Scientists

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One of our goals as Learning Scientists is to make sure that research is communicated in an accessible but accurate way. Unfortunately, many times science dissemination results in miscommunication and translation such that the original results and message are skewed.

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Neuropedagogy as a Scientific Discipline: Interdisciplinary Description of the Theoretical Basis for the Development of a Research Field

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Neuropedagogy as a Scientific Discipline: Interdisciplinary Description of the Theoretical Basis for the Development of a Research Field

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Learning and memory under stress: implications for the classroom - npj Science of Learning

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npj Science of Learning - Learning and memory under stress: implications for the classroom

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

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How the Brain

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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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Neurons and What They Do ~ An Animated Guide

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Hippocampus – How the Brain Form Memories

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Hippocampus – How the Brain Form Memories

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<iframe title="vimeo-player" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/147656422?h=bb0fe605a3" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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

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The neuroscience of learning. | Siddharth Warrier | TEDxSIESGST

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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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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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https://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no4/koutropoulos_1211.htm

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Apostolos Koutropoulos
University of Massachusetts
Boston, MA 02125 USA
a.koutropoulos@umb.edu

This year marks ten years from the first introduction to the term "Digital Natives," coined originally by Marc Prensky in two seminal articles that established the traits of the digital native (2001a, 2001b). Prensky is by no means the first person to try and identity a new, distinct, generation of humans, and digital natives isn't the only term proposed to describe them. Other common terms come from Oblinger & Oblinger (2005) and Tapscott (1997) who use the term net-generation, and Strauss & Howe (2000) use the term Millennials to describe this same generation of students. The dates do vary from author to author, but not by much; and the characteristics attributed to this new generation blend easily from author to author because a lot of the characteristics are predicated on access and utilization of technology and the Internet. This naming fetish didn't stop at these three terms, and these terms are used interchangeably in every day discussions, but for the purposes of this article, this article will use the term "digital native."

The emergence of the classification of this new generation lead to many articles, blog posts, columns, books and videos on educating this generation and taping into these learners' new learning styles (Dede, 2005). Popular viral videos were produced showing statistics of new technology usage (Socialnomics, 2009) and emotional pleas from self-professed young digital natives that would like to see change in the institutions that educate them and cater to their unique digital needs and learning styles (VALATV, 2010; Nesbitt, 2007) What's amazing about this term, and all that it implies, is the amazing speed with which it took hold in circles broader than the educational circle, and how it became part of our "common sense" without having been tested much in every day practice. The digital native became a rallying cry for change in education, (expensive) technological infusion at all levels of education, and broad-changes in institutions that are providing learning opportunities and environments to these digital natives. This article aims to critically examine the underlying digital native theory, review recent studies inquiring about the existence of digital natives, and to examine the effects that this "movement" has had on the learning professions.

When examining the key characteristics of digital natives I start by examining the works of Prensky (2001a, 2001b, 2003, 2006a, 2006b, 2010) for two reasons. He is the author most often quoted or referred to when discussing the characteristics and preferences of this generation in both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed articles; especially in the "early literature" on digital natives between 2001 and 2006. He is also the person who coined the term "digital native" in his early writings. Other authors, such as Dede (2005), Oblinger (2005), Oblinger & Oblinger (2005), Howe & Strauss (2000), Tapscott (1999) and Frand (2000) also get referenced, although not with the same frequency as Prensky's writings. Thus it makes sense to examine Presky's arguments and positions first.

Prensky's Digital Native Canon

In his first article on digital natives (2001a) Prensky writes about a singularity, an event that fundamentally changed things, our students in fact, so that the current educational system is ill prepared for this new generation of learner. Prensky supports his argument by providing some facts and figures, such as students spending fewer than 5,000 hours of their lives reading (assuming that reading refers to books only), but over 10,000 playing video games, 20,000 watching television, and he goes on to give us more similar statistics about Instant messages (IMs) sent, talking on (digital) cellphones and sending email. It is clear that in Prensky's writings, as well as other digital native author's writings, that they expect that these statistics hold true across the board, regardless of your socioeconomic background and your country of origin. What's clear is that the context isn't really considered. Who is spending all this time playing video games? Prensky owns a video game company so it may be that what he sees every day is what he thinks of the norm, but that doesn't mean that this norm is universal reality.

Other overgeneralizations put forth by authors like Prensky, is that the digital natives prefer images over text, they prefer games over "serious work," they function best when networked, digital natives can't pay attention (or they choose not to!), and finally digital natives have skills, with digital technologies, that they've perfected. There are a number of issues with these overgeneralizations. First, and foremost, what is the context? What is the Socioeconomic Status (SES) of these digital natives that have access to the technology that they've become skilled masters of? Do those general skills transfer over to the academic side? Could I seamlessly take my skill of posting facebook updates and apply this to an academic context without the help of a more experienced "digital immigrant"? Can Prensky's digital immigrants just pay attention even when they are bored? Of course not! Digital immigrants doodled, dozed off and day dreamt when they were bored, digital natives do the same. Being able to focus on a task has nothing to do with exposure to technology. Finally, I would say, that most people prefer to do fun things rather than something that they perceive of as work.

These figures and overgeneralizations have oft been repeated by followers of the digital native message, without much self-reflection or critique. They are taken as-is, as common sense, and as universal. Early on, when some suggested that the context does matter and that these are assumptions aren't universal (VanSlyke, 2003), Presky's (2003) rebutal, which included a lot of technological buzz words and no hint of pedagogy, said that these online services are a few of the things that kids are using online these days and he expects that his observations hold true in the US, Japan, Korean and much of the rest of the world. Prensky doesn't provide facts or empirical evidence, just suppositions. When Prensky writes about his preferred method of teaching (2001a) he writes that he prefers to invent video games, but he never considers that this may not be the most appropriate method of instruction, and that it might not be the learner's preferred method for instruction. Thus in the same article he talks about the needs of the learner, while at the same time ignoring the needs of learners by imposing his own preferred method of teaching.

Prensky's technological determinism culminates in a biological determinism in part 2 of his introduction to the concept of the digital native (2001b). Prensky argues that the brain's neuroplasticity makes it so that the brain adapts to the environment that it is in, so in a technology-infused environment the brain will adapt to better use the tools that are available in that environment. While this may be true, there are two things that Prensky does not take into account. The first is that as human beings our brain is continuously rewiring itself throughout our lives. We don't fossilize at a specific state of our lives, but we learn to use the tools that are available to us, thus digital natives should also exploit that physical ability to learn to function in environments that don't necessarily have the tools that they are used to. The second thing that Prensky never questions, in either article, is the need to impose radical change on our educational system. This, taken together with the, unknown at the time, numbers of technology use within the digital native population, means that we weren't really talking about pedagogy, and what's really good for the learners, but rather, perhaps, change for change's sake, or the technological equivalent of "throwing money at the educational problem."

Addenda and Extensions to the Canon

Other digital native evangelist authors have their own two cents to add into the mix of characteristics that defines this group of supposedly tech-savvy students. Oblinger (2005) for instance portrays a vision of technological utopia, something that supposedly exists today, where students are proactively using their iPods to learn, snap photos everywhere they go and use these tools for impromptu study meet-ups. Students don't wait for the professor to answer their question but they Google it for themselves and find the answer; however this isn't always the truth. The fact that one can mechanically go through the motions of searching for someone on Google doesn't mean that they possess the critical literacy and information literacy required to determine which results are quality search results. Even if they knew which results were quality results it does not imply that these students can then process what those results mean and to learn the answer to a question that they had; this is something that Oblinger glosses over.

One of Frand's (2000) contributions to what makes a digital native a digital native is what he terms "Nintendo over logic," which claims that this generation doesn't read manuals and prefers a trial and error approach, as one might find in a video game. Prensky (2001a) and others also hit upon this note as an innovation of digital natives, and an "accent" (or hinderance) that digital immigrants have because they rely on manuals. This notion of trial and error über alles as a innovation of digital natives, and the non-reliance on manuals is false on two grounds. First, experiential learning, another name for learning by trial and error, goes back at least to the early 1900s with the work of Piaget. Presky's later proposals (2006a, 2006b; 2010) for using peer groups, allowing students to pursue their passions, and essentially going from a s age on the stage to a guide on the side aren't new, but they go back to Piaget (Singer & Revenson, 1996), Vygotsky (1978) and even Socrates (Karasmanis, 2002), just to name a few. If Piaget, Vygotsky and Socrates thought of these notions, this means that these traits aren't inherent to a population who grew up in a digital age, but rather these are traits inherent in humans as a whole, and everything else is just a tool that we can utilize.

Another trait that is ascribed to digital natives is that they are multitaskers, moreover they are efficient at it, and it is technology that encourages this multitasking. Dede (2005) gives us an example of his daughter doing her homework while at the same time listening to music, emailing and IMing friends and surfing the net. Dede isn't the only one who provides us with anecdotes like this one, and as a matter of fact there are many anecdotes like this in both peer-reviewed and non-peer reviewed publications, it's part of what passes as "common sense." The problem is that this type of multitasking wasn't taken to task. Are these tasks performed at the same time, or are they done serially, in smaller distinct segments? Has the efficiency of multitasking been proven? And how much brainpower are we giving to each individual task? Is the music something we pay attention to or is it the equivalent of white noise? Does the multitasker pay the same attention to each individual IM window or does he let some of them acquiesce?

Finally, tying in with multitasking, and "Nintendo over Logic", we have a depiction of how digital natives learn. According to Tapscott (1999) digital natives are non-sequential with their use of information, going back and forth between programs and sources and their learning style is an outgrowth of these ingrained habits of seeking and retrieving information from the Internet. This marks a striking contrast to previous generation of students, who tend to acquire info more passively from authority figures (Tapscott as quoted in Barnes, Marateo & Ferris, 2007). Perhaps one of the bigger claims made is that this generation (i.e. digital natives) exists across the world and across socio-economic conditions, not just in advanced economies (Tapscott as cited in Jones & Healing, 2010).

Just as with the number of email messages sent and read, the number of hours spent on watching TV and playing video games that Prensky (2001a) gives us, the importance is not in the metrics themselves, but rather the details of who provided this information, in what context, and what these numbers mean in the broader context. Knowing that one can multitask isn't new information, we've always been able to walk and chew gum at the same time, to borrow from the old saying, but how much attention are we paying to each task and why. The devil is in the details and unfortunately the early literature on digital natives that built upon the work of Presky, Oblinger, Tapscott, Dede and Frand lacked that fine attention to detail; they seemed to rework the same old assumptions, and fit their data within the Weltsaschauung of the digital native proponents.

Straight from the Digital Natives

Some information about digital natives comes from digital natives themselves, not just from members of others generations trying to describe digital natives. Two prime examples, from written sources, are Roberts (2005) and Windham (2005) who provide us with information about what it means to be a digital native from a technological and a social perspective. Roberts writes that he is " a member of the [digital natives] Generation. The Internet and related technologies have had a major influence on [his] generation's culture and development. Many, if not most, [digital native] students have never known a world without computers, the World Wide Web, highly interactive video games, and cellular phones."

Roberts continues by providing views of a supposed representative sample of digital native students and what technology means to them. Among the responses are "Reformatting my computer system and installing cutting-edge software that allows me to do what I want, when I want, without restrictions, viruses, and the rules of Bill Gates, " and "The ability to adapt and configure an already established program to [something that] benefits me daily." Roberts concludes with:

"The feedback from this select set of [digital native] students does contain some good news. It indicates that the [digital native's] general expectations regarding leading-edge technology have not fully impacted its expectations about the use of technology to support learning. This may signal a failure in the responsiveness of colleges and universities in terms of keeping pace with the rapidly changing technological landscape. However, it may also indicate that the opportunity to catch up with the [digital native] has not been lost."

There are several issues with what Roberts writes. An implicit assumption is made that his own lived experiences are the same across the lot of digital natives, something which isn't true. Up until recently access to video games, cellular phones and the Internet were costly enough to imply a certain level of affluence; as such these would not be the lived experiences of most members of this generation. Related to this is this assumed technological know how required to format, reinstall and customize one's computer (to the extent described); again this isn't the case with all digital natives. Finally, the digital native is viewed from a position of superiority, giving non-natives a chance to catch up with them, and the digital native's low expectations regarding academic technology must be a result of the non-native's failure to adapt quickly enough.

From a social perspective on digital natives we look to Windham (2005) who writes about encounters with a professor that one, reading her article, would characterize as a Luddite. While it is true that this particular professor could incorporate some newer ways of communication (like email) this particular digital native comes off as highly disrespectful to people who don't share her social conventions, relegating these non-digital natives into the category of "relics." This particular professor represented for her "a world [she] could scarcely remember-a world before driving directions on MapQuest, book buying on Amazon.com, and making plans on Instant Messenger." While this may be true it is hardly a reason to assume that all of the world operates in this same fashion, and that it is the only way of being.

Windham writes that members of the digital native generation are consumed by the notion of achievement, they join clubs, participate in community service and are engaged. Furthermore this generation has not seen corruption of power or felt the fear of the Cold War. It is argued that it is this type of social change that has brought on the technological adeptness in digital natives. Digital natives keep their addresses and plans in their PDAs, they listen to their music on MP3 players, record one television program while viewing another, and browse library databases instead of going to the library. These are viewed as digital native innovations over previous generations; however it is previous generations that brought these innovations to this current generation, the digital natives, not the other way around.

Finally, digital natives are described as striving "to stay ahead of the technology curve in ways that often exhaust older generations," and to achieve this they "rarely pick up the instruction pack to learn programming or a technique. Instead, spurred by our youthful exploration of the Internet, we tend to learn things ourselves, to experiment with new technology until we get it right, and to build by touch rather than tutorial" (Windham, 2005). From a surface view, this does corresponds to what other digital native evangelists claim, like Frand's (2000) "Nintendo over logic," but something is amiss here. Digital Natives may indeed start without looking at a manual, but when what they are using is not intuitive, they either get the manual, as is exemplified by the great numbers of computer game walkthroughs online; they will give up, as we shall see digital natives aren't that great at adapting when compared to older students; or they stick to what they know, which means not experimenting and goes counter the claims of digital native evangelists.

Demographics Matter

So, what does the research on digital natives tell us? The picture is not as black and white as digital native evangelists, would have us think. There are many variables that go into creating the stereotypical digital native. Location is important, as well as socioeconomic status. How much one uses a certain tool or technology, and what they use it for, are also factors; and how well those skills and behaviors transfer over into educational domains is important. After all, one can't advocate for radical change in the education system based on skills and behaviors that don't carry over.

VanSlyke (2003) had originally questioned the global reach of the digital native, and Prensky, in a rebutal, disagreed with him stating that he expected children in much of the rest of the world to exhibit the behaviors of the digital native (2003). Research, however, has shown that the location does matter. In the US (Smith & Caruso, 2010) we see different levels of computer and web technology usage among the same demographic of digital natives in Australia (Kennedy, et al., 2010; Margaryan & Littlejohn, 2008) and than those in the UK (Stoerger, 2009). In South Africa, as well, we see that only 26% of the population might be described as having grown up digital (Brown & Czerniewicz, 2010).

We also see that the semantics of the words "native" and "immigrant" make a difference. As Brown & Czerniewicz (2010) inform us, in the South African context the words "native" and "immigrant" have the opposite meaning from what Prensky (2001a) describes within his North American frame of reference. In South Africa, due to its colonial and apartheid past, the immigrant, the colonizer, is seen as the forward thinker, while the native is seen as the one who is backward. Digital native, as a term, according to many, including Brown & Czerniwicz, is an "othering" concept. It sets up a binary black and white, and those who fall into one category, whatever the connotation and the qualities implied, cannot exhibit characteristics of the other category that they are not members of.

This is problematic because there is an implied power relation, and superiority, attached to those particular sets of skills and dispositions of the digital native. In turn, this digital divide has spurred a Moral Panic, calling for radical change in education where arguments are articulated in dramatic language, with no empirical evidence or theoretical foundations, based only on "common sense" and personal anecdotes (Bennett & Maton, 2010). Anyone who resists or questions these calls radical change is said to be out of touch, lazy, or just dismissed as not having legitimate concerns (Jones & Healing, 2010).

Another major factor in this discussion are socioeconomic factors. Most of these studies poll students who are in college. College students don't represent whole populations because they tend to be from a segment of the population that has the financial capacity to afford to be able to go to college (Bradley, et al., 2008 in Bennett & Maton, 2010). As Brown & Czerniewicz (2010) framed it: it's not about a generation but an elite. Brown & Czerniewicz found that information and communication technology (ICT) use was along socioeconomic lines. Twenty-two percent of the students lacked both experience and opportunity to use ICT, had less than 4 years of experience and had no ICT access off-campus.

As Broos & Roe (2006) indicate, socioeconomic factors, as well as other factors such as race, gender and educational background, do play a role in how and how much people use technology. Those with higher incomes do tend to use technology and the Internet more often than those in middle and lower income categories. One's anticipated job prospects, in the Broos & Roe study, were also strong indicators as to whether one would use ICT or not. Finally, another interesting point to consider are the demographics of digital natives. In a recent US study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Rainie, 2011), most digital natives are white (61%) and live in the suburbs (54%). It is hard to believe that an American suburban white person will have the same life experiences as other people who are not in that same demographic group.

Access to, Utilization, and Quality of Engagement

With all the focus on having a generation "bathed in bits" (Tapscott, 1999) access to technologies and utilization of these technologies in both quality and quantity should be something that matters when we measure technological engagement of these digital natives. Access and utilization should also be something that ought to be scrutinized and carefully analyzed. First, keeping an eye toward the USA, we see that contributional usage by members of the digital native generation on social sites is quite low. Only 36% of digital native students contribute to blogs, only 40% contribute to wikis, and only 42% contribute to video sites. Social games and social bookmarking sites are only used by 25% of these digital natives. Fewer that 20% of the students said that they used course lecture podcasts or videos (Smith & Caruso, 2010). Similar results were also found by the Corrin, Bennett & Lockyer in the Australian academic context (2010) and the Pew Internet Internet and American Life Project in the broader US context (Fox & Madden, 2006; Jones & Fox, 2009; Zickuhr, 2010; Rainie, 2011).

Across the pond in England, Jones & Healing (2010) report that over 80% of first year students reported a "slight confidence" and "basic skills" with presentation software and online library resources - sources that they were familiar with. For sources that they were not familiar with, like blogs and wikis, these students reported that they didn't not feel confident in using them; this mirror's Kvavik's findings (2005) in the US. The Jones & Healing study reports that only a minority of students felt like it was important to them to share and upload content.

In Australia a study found that only 15% of the digital natives were "power users" and 45% were rudimentary technology users (Kennedy, et al., 2010). In a related study, more than 70% of Australian first year students never kept a blog, more than 80% had never produced a podcast and have never contributed to a wiki (Kennedy, et al., 2007). Similar results were reported by Corrin, Bennett and Lockyer (2010) indicating that only 23% of students self-reported as advanced computer users, 66% never had a blog, 69% did not maintain a website, video editing or creation was rare, and they seldom (31%) or never (41%) listened to podcasts. While it is true that the technological advancements of the past few decades have created a veritable cornucopia of information for digital natives and non-digital natives alike, as Dresang (2005) points out, the digital natives are missing out on this rich environment because they have poorly developed information-seeking skills, in other words they consume from sources that they already know.

If one were to take the claims of digital native evangelists at face value, or read student commentary such as the ones provided by Roberts (2005) and Windham (2005), or view popular viral videos by so-called digital natives (VALATV, 2010; Nesbitt, 2007), one might think that all of them are power users; that they are indeed media producers, that they collaborate often, frequently and with great skill. However the collected statistics from a variety of studies paint a different picture; the fact is that the average "digital native" entering college is not technologically sophisticated; this digital native is not a power user. Even in countries where there is more access to a computer and the Internet, usage of these technologies tends to be read-only, checking facebook or looking things up on Wikipedia (Selwyn, 2010; Margaryan & Littlejohn, 2008); in other words passive interaction.

Personal Technology and the Leap to Educational Technology

Even when students use a certain technology for personal use, it neither means that they want to use that technology for use in educational ventures, nor does it mean that they know how to use it in an educational context. As Kennedy, et al. (2008) discovered, the transfer from an entertainment technology to a learning technology is neither automatic nor guaranteed. Kvavik's study (2005) informs us that even high levels of skill and use did not necessarily translate into a preference for increased use of technology in the classroom; in addition students preferred technology in moderate mounts as a supplement to their courses. There are two factors in play here; first are student attitudes toward instruction, and the role of technology in instruction; and second the nature of personal technology when mixed with instruction.

First one has to examine student motivations and perceptions as to what constitutes instruction. Nicholas (2008), through his surveys, found that the majority of students prefer lecture as the format of class instruction, in addition to collaborative group work; a similar result was seen in an Australian study (Margaryan & Littlejohn, 2008). Lohnes & Kinzer (2007) discovered that student's perceptions of education were fairly traditional: students expected to go to a classroom and viewed this space as a separate space. They also expected to be lead through the materials by a subject matter expert. Technology isn't necessarily ruled out, however it needs to tie into the subject of the class, in other words, is the application of this technology appropriate for the subject matter? In Kvavik's study (2005) he discovered that students did not feel that the use of information technology in the class increased the amount of time that they were engaged with course activities. Some students (JISC, 2007 in Bayne & Ross, 2007) actually go a step further and suspect that if all learning in mediated through technology, the value of learning will diminish.

The second factor has to do with the perception of the space: is it a private space or a public space? Students are reluctant to mix their private sphere, exemplified by the use of services like facebook and instant messaging, with the classroom sphere. Students were asked if they would like to use their favorite IM client to support classroom communication. This was rejected by students, saying that their "friends" on MSN are actually their friends, so adding many classmates to their MSN account, with whom they generally don't speak, is too laborious, and potentially an issue of privacy (Margaryan & Littlejohn, 2008). An interesting adjunct to this are the findings of Jones & Romanau (2009) whose study found that "collaboration and collaborative learning did not seem to be a strong feature of the students' experience at university and the kinds of social networking that was done was mainly informal and largely unrelated to formal learning."

Locus of Control

One final element to consider is student locus of control and the independence to experiment freely (and without consequence) with the technology. Kvavik (2005) found that in quantitative studies students say that they have the skills that they need, however qualitative data contradicts the collected quantitative data. Students only have very basic office suite skills, and they have difficulty moving beyond those basic activities; it would appear that these students don't recognize that their applications have enhanced functionalities that they can use. The same study, discovered that these digital natives are mystified by technology and some are afraid to putz around, to experiment, for fear that they will do something wrong and break the computer; Margaryan & Littlejohn (2008) found similar results. This casts further doubt on the "Nintendo over logic" assertions that digital native evangelist authors have put forth.

One possibility for this lack of confidence on the part of computer users may lie in how much time they've spent using technology. Studies have shown that those who have taken up a technology more recently, and who lack confidence, take up fewer opportunities (Linvingstone & Helsper, 2007). Older students (the assumption being non-digital native older students) have been shown to have more proficiency with technology (Eynon, 2010), indicating that greater time on task is beneficial. Control of access has also been shown to have an affect on computer literacy. Young people who use the Internet more at school are more likely to use the Internet for homework activities; however sporadic and monitored access at schools and libraries may provide sufficient access for basic information seeking, but is insufficient for the immersed kind of social engagements that we expect students to possess (Ito, et al., 2008: p.2 in Eynon, 2010).

Educators are perhaps falling into the same trap as parents are; that is that we have a tacit expectation that kids will have spontaneous engagement with schooled interests spurred by the availability of the computer as a tool (Kerwalla & Crook, 2002), this of course has proven to not be the case. If computer access and behaviors are controlled, either by supervision by an authority figure, or inconvenient placement of the computing device, the locus of control is external (Kerwalla & Crook, 2002), and this has an effect of inhibiting creative experimentation, and thus limiting the learner. These limitations lead to computer usage behaviors are counter to what "common sense" has us associate with digital natives.

Finally, from a social perspective, in contrast to the earlier writings about digital natives by digital native evangelists that portrayed digital natives as masters of their own destiny, there is some work that goes counter to this argument. Johnson (2006), a digital native herself teaching other digital natives, indicates that digital natives are complacent, actively seek authority figures and are unable to cast a critical gaze on their lives. This can be seen in digital native's own writing as exemplified in the previous section by Roberts (2005) and Windham (2005).

In the past ten years, a lot of articles have been written about how to reach out and how to teach these so-called digital natives. Many professionals, in many diverse fields, have written on the topic and they, like Smith & Caruso (2010) believe some version of the myth that these digital natives are cloud-savvy information consumers. Much of this thinking is seen as "common sense," however as Ng informs us "common-sense thinking is uncritical, episodic, and disjointed, but it is also powerful because it is taken for granted" (1997, in Selwyn, 2009). Looking at the research, however, we see that there is no one, monolithic, group that we can point to and say that those are digital natives. As a matter of fact, the individuals who would fit the stereotype of the digital native appear to be in the minority of the population.

The person who coined the term digital native, Mark Prensky, acknowledges this fact in his recent writings by saying that "by virtue of being born in the digital age, our students are digital natives by definition, but that doesn't mean that they were ever taught everything (or anything, in some cases) about computers or other technologies, or that all of them learned on their own" (p64, 2010). The problem is that he, and other digital native evangelists, are still clinging to this flawed concept of the digital native. At best it doesn't describe a population because digital technology was in our day-to-day life before the digital native came along; at worst it is an "othering" concept, a concept which creates an artificial dichotomy with a privileged and a non-privileged position. Depending on your own cultural context, the native may be the privileged or the non-privileged one.

In earlier writings about digital natives (Frand, 2000; Prensky 2001a; Prensky, 2001b; Dede, 2005; Oblinger, 2005; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005) the native was clearly superior, however uncritically accepting such terminology not only creates a second class citizen of the non-natives, but it also places the majority of digital natives in a depriviledged position. These digital natives try to catch up to the stereotype; obstacles are added to the education of the digital native due to the moral panic (Bennett & Maton, 2010) created by the calls for radical change in education to help these digital natives with the tools that they supposedly use every day.

Student surveys showed that older students more likely to change their approach to learning, whereas the digital native students were the least likely to change their approach to learning (Garcia & Qin , 2007). As Ramaley & Zia (2005) point out, "by the time students enter high school, disengagement from course work and serious study is common." From a US context, in a post- No Child Left Behind USA, if our digital native learners aren't engaged, they have no incentive to work around the problem and find a solution. In contrast, older learners, I would posit, are more engaged and thus do work at changing their approach in order to find solutions.

Instead of having education professionals focus on the technology aspect of the debate and in certain digital native behaviors, which "common sense" has told us, are immutable, we ought to be focusing on proper pedagogy and exposing our students to information retrieval and critical information analysis skills that are in both the digital and the analog realms. We out to teach our students to actually change their approaches to learning when what they are trying out is not working for them, instead of assuming that they possess this "Nintendo over logic" which enables them to modify their learning plans when things aren't working out.

Finally, we need to move away from this fetish of insisting in naming this generation the Digital/Net/Google Generation because those terms don't describe them, and have the potential of keeping this group of students from realizing personal growth by assuming that they've already grown in areas that they so clearly have not. Learners don't know what they don't know (Christensen, 2006), but if they come to the table from a position of superiority, like they are better than the so-called digital immigrants (Roberts, 2005; Windham, 2005) they lose an opportunity to learn something that they don't know that they don't know, something that may be beneficial to them. Let's resist "common sense" because common sense isn't all that common.

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The Journal of Online Learning and Teaching

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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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RED, you should say "Blue."
As soon as the words appear on your screen, read the list as fast as you can. When you have finished, click on the "Finish" button. The time it took you to read all of the words will be shown. If you want to try the same set of words, click on the "reload" button of your browser. If you want to continue with the experiment, click on "Continue Experiment."

Go to the first test.

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RED, you should say "Blue."As soon as the words appear on your screen, read the list as fast as you can. When you have finished, click on the "Finish" button. The time it took you to read all of the words will be shown.