3 Videos about Attention, Learning and Monotasking
This post is a response to some of the queries I got after my earlier post on “10 Truisms in Teaching and Learning”.
They specifically wanted some more resources that illustrated the relationship between attention (memory), learning, and multitasking.
Attention is the currency in the classroom. What you attend to is what you will (might) end up learning. I’ve written about these in several posts earlier.
Therefore let me share 3 videos that I found on youtube. These videos are quite helpful in understanding the above issues.
Video 1: 3 Simple Lessons in Learning and Attention
Key ideas shared in the video are:
Internal Focus, External Focus, and Seductive Details (quite interesting).
An example of Seductive Details:
A teacher with a British accent is teaching English in the class. Student A focuses on the content of the lesson. Student B focuses on the teacher’s accent. There’s a huge chance that both of them would walk away learning (knowing) different things.
That’s why I am quite hesitant to label my classroom activities as “fun learning activities”.
In short,
“Where” you put your attention is what you will end up learning.
Teachers can shape attention in the classroom by reducing seductive details and distractions (eg: heavy slides with childish animations)
However, students must take responsibility of their attention (eg: keep away their mobile phones)
Video 2: A Simple Way to Learn Complex Skills
Some skills are easy to master (learning how to make tea). Some are quite complex (calculus). They involve a bunch “interdependent parts” which you can’t really practice separately.
So how can you learn complex skills?
One way is to change what you pay attention to. Pay attention to one aspect of the skill for a certain duration. Then pay attention to another aspect. Rotate your focus from one aspect to another. That way you can build meaningful building blocks in the brain for more complex skills. Finally, integrate the blocks together. Then, repeat the whole process.
In short,
Rotate your focus.
Video 3: Forget multitasking, try monotasking
I’ve used this video in my classes and workshop sessions. Probably one of the best videos because the presenter, Paolo Cardini, demonstrates his points and the main message in under 3 mins and boom.. the video is over.
In short,
Multitasking degrades the quality of your work. Likewise, it degrades the quality of learning. Therefore, monotask !
Key Insights for Teachers:
Help your students direct their attention. Internal and External focus. Reduce any unnecessary “Seductive details” from your teaching, activities, slides, course.
Help your students “rotate” their attention from one aspect of the complex skill to another one.
Create a “mono-tasking” environment in the classroom.
Hope it helps !