Daniel Willingham--Science & Education
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Is technology changing how students learn?

11/1/2012

 
Is technology changing how students learn, that is, the workings of the brain?

An article in today's New York Times reports that most teachers think the answer is "yes," and this development is not positive.

The article reports the results of two surveys of teachers, one conducted by the Pew Internet Project, and the other by Common Sense Media. Both report that teachers believe that students' use of digital technology adversely affects their attention spans and makes them less likely to stick with challenging tasks.

In interviews, many teachers report feeling that they have to work harder than they used to in order to keep students engaged.
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As the article notes, there have not been any long-term studies that show whether student attention span has been affected by digital media.

Still, a lot of psychologists are actually skeptical that digital media are likely to fundamentally change the fundamentals of human cognition.

Steven Pinker has written "Electronic media aren't going to revamp the brain's mechanisms of information processing." I made the same argument here.

The basic architecture is likely to be relatively fixed, and in the absence of extreme deprivation, will develop fairly predictably. Sure, it is shaped by experience but those changes will just tune to experience what's already there--it might change the dimensions of the rooms, without altering the fundamental floor plan, so to speak.

Does that view conflict with teacher's impressions? Not necessarily.

When we talk about a student's attention span, I suspect we're really talking about a particular type of attention. It's not their overall ability to pay attention: kids today can, I think, get lost for hours in a movie or a book or a game just as readily as their parents did. Rather, the seemingly shorter attention span is their ability to maintain attention on a task that is not very interesting to them.

But even within that situation, I suspect that there are two factors at work: one is the raw capacity to direct one's attention. The second is the willingness to do so.

I doubt that technology affects the first, but I'm ready to believe that it affects the second.

Directing attention--forcing yourself to think about something you'd rather not think about--is effortful, even mildly aversive. Why would you do it? There are lots of possible reasons. Among them would be previous experiences leading you to believe that such sustained attention leads to a payoff.

In other words, if you've grown up in circumstances where very little effort  usually led to something that was stimulating and interesting, then you likely have an expectation that that's the nature of the world: I do just a little something, and I get a big payoff. (And the payoff is probably immediate.)

The process by which children learn to expect a lot of cool stuff to happen based on minimal effort may start early.

When a toddler is given a toy that puts on a dazzling display of light and sound when a button is pushed, we might be teaching him this lesson.
In contrast, the toddler who gets a set of blocks has to put a heck of a lot more effort (and sustained attention) into getting the toy to do something interesting--build a tower, for example, that she can send crashing down.

It's hard for me to believe that something as fundamental to cognition as the ability to pay attention can moved around a whole lot. It's much easier for me to accept that one's beliefs--beliefs about what is worthy of my attention, beliefs about how much effort I should dispense to tasks--can be moved around, because beliefs are a product of experience.

I actually think that much of what I've written here was implicit in some of the teachers' comments--the emphasis on immediacy, for example--but it's worth making it explicit.

Barbara Hong
11/1/2012 11:35:11 am

Funny that you posted this blog today because that's what I've been thinking about all day. My son's teacher said he (5) is not paying attention in school because his brain is wired differently compared to her generation. I highly doubt so. It's just not possible that I genetically altered his brain when I was conceiving him. I argue that it's because the classroom is getting more boring, but at the same time, the external stimulus is getting more exciting. Obviously it's easier for my son to regulate his brain on the ipad than on another pile of worksheets.

Ben Kestner link
11/1/2012 11:18:23 pm

Brilliantly written.
90% of teachers said that technologies were creating "easily distracted generation with short memory spans"
Not true- Technologies have opened up the senseless fact-pushing, meaningless testing system for what it really is. Kids now demand a new approach. An approach which is interesting to them. I'm giving a TEd talk at TedxBrussels on this on November the 12th. Keep writing!

EB
11/2/2012 03:28:17 am

I take your point. However, I'm also convinced that the ability to pay attention to things that are not entertaining also resembles a muscle (in addition to a neural pathway). If you never have to use that muscle, it will not develop as well as it could. Therefore, schools and teachers need to keep requiring students to work that muscle, in a variety of ways. And parents need to do that too; the real world certainly requires that ability, even today.

John Williams link
11/15/2012 01:48:07 pm

I totally agree the point. Being able to pay attention to something "boring" is important. It definitely involves a muscle.

I think there was a study - I'm not sure the name, but it was noted in Paul Tough's most recent book - about a test that simply had the test takers remember or refer back to random numbers in the instructions to get the right answer. It's completely mindless, except that it required students to persevere with a boring test.

The funny part is that years later, when researchers looked back at the results and how many students graduated high school, the students who were able to finish the complete "boring" test were most likely to graduate high school.

Mike Thayer (@gfrblxt) link
11/2/2012 02:25:04 pm

"The process by which children learn to expect a lot of cool stuff to happen based on minimal effort may start early." I think we teachers have a lot of anecdotal evidence in support of this statement - it certainly seems the case that students require much quicker, flashier feedback for minimal effort than they used to (and I've only been teaching for 13 years). So here's the question - are there long-term consequences (individual AND societal) to this, if true? What will it mean to students?

Roger Sweeny
11/3/2012 04:17:50 am

In honor of this election season, I partially blame ... Big Bird. Well, Big Bird as a metaphor for all the educational TV shows full of singing and dancing and oh so entertaining because you have to hook the kids with entertaining stuff to get them to tune in (and, yes, that's a pun).

I teach science so when "Sid the Science Kid" began, I made it a point to watch a few episodes. I was appalled. So much singing and dancing and so much non-science fun in Sid's oh so entertaining school. If Sid ever had to go to a real school, he would be so let down.

Everyone in Sid's target audience does have to go to a real school eventually. Is it surprising that many react unproductively to a situation where "minimal effort" does not cause "a lot of cool stuff to happen"?

Bill
11/3/2012 07:46:44 am

Roger,
As an educator, although not a science teacher, myself, I would have to agree, but also disagree with your belief that television is the problem. I offer this as a response:

When you or I watch television, we prefer to watch shows that keep our attention. If we do not like a show, we turn the station to something that is more entertaining. How are children any different? They want to be entertained, but so do we. Our entertainment may come in the form of learning, but I can bet it didn't when we were young. Television shows, such as Sid, I believe, are doing wonders to our children. I offer a personal example....my young children were in love with that show, for a while. However, when they did watch it I sat down with them. Often pausing the show to discuss certain things as they unfolded. I truly believe that this is one of the reasons why my son is so interested in science...because he saw how "cool" it was from Sid.

As far as your assertion that students will be let down when they go to school and do not see "a lot of cool stuff happen," then you as a teacher should make that "cool stuff" happen. What better way to draw them in than to have a real life example of "cool stuff." I refer to this "cool stuff" as edutainment, and believe that is what we, as teachers, are there to do....entertain!! If a kid becomes entertained they are more willing to want to learn more about said subject, not less.

The shows today are FAR more educational than they were when I was young (in the early 1980s), and as a result kids are more knowledgeable than they were thirty years ago. I could offer you more personal examples if you are interested.


Roger Sweeny
11/4/2012 02:26:30 am

I'm glad you've helped your son be interested in science. I'm sure he has a much different experience when you watch with him and pause and talk about it than when he sits and watches by himself. I suspect the vast majority of kids' watching is the latter.

I try to be as entertaining as I can but I rarely reach the level of PBS Kids. It is unrealistic to expect any teacher to hit that level on a regular basis. If students expect learning to be that kind of fun, they will pretty consistently find that school is a disappointment.

Elijah Goodwin link
11/3/2012 04:32:04 am

Thoughtful post. As a trained evolutionary biologist, I agree that it is unlikely that a fundamental rewiring of the brain has occurred, but we also do know that the process of brain development involves synaptic pruning, such that experience can have a profound impact on brain pathways. I also agree with you that the difference is more one of motivation than ability. As a teacher I think this leads us to two questions/ideas. The first as has been mentioned in comments above is "Can we continue to teach in ways that are less than stimulating/interesting when the outside world becomes increasingly interesting/stimulating?" The second is, "Even with the advent of technology, there will always be things worth doing/learning that require sustained effort/attention/perseverance; how do we help kids develop those abilities?" I don't think the answer is to keep on teaching the way we always have, because it's "good" for them. Instead we have to find ways to provide our students with the ability to create their own intrinsic motivation to develop sustained attention/effort/perseverance. I'm exploring the answers to these questions myself and don't have any easy answers, but it seems to me that good project or problem-based learning and authentic assessment that is challenging and interesting can help our students develop the ability and willingness to persevere, in their quest to find the answers or solve the problem. Boring worksheets and standardized tests definitely won't provide the motivation that we're looking for though, no matter how many times we make the students complete them or what high-stakes we attach to them.

Roger Sweeny
11/4/2012 02:33:04 am

Your ed school teachers would be so proud. You have internalized the ed school catechism and now have the One True Faith.

Marshall Doris link
11/4/2012 04:36:46 pm

Students may find worksheets boring, but I know from experience that many, maybe even most, high school students generally prefer being bored to activities that ask them to think about difficult questions and write critical responses. After all, reading and thinking critically is challenging work.

I'm not willing to believe that technology shortens attention span until there is significant research rather than anecdotal evidence to prove it. In the meantime, we do need to make sure that our efforts to engage students are focused on meaningful tasks, as opposed to busy work or purely entertaining work. Perhaps putting school work in a context that allows students to see its value to them is a key.

http://whyweschool.blogspot.com

John Williams link
11/15/2012 01:56:46 pm

I LOVE this response, and I agree on how worksheets for the sake of grades backfire.

I've seen students do incredible, hard work when they are engaged in a project they are sincerely interested in.

I believe the model of education and assessment needs to change, from attempting to have students proficient in everything to developing their specific strengths and pursuing their passion.

When students do so, many other relevant skills fall into place.

John

www.academiclifecoaching.com/blog

Steven Carr
11/5/2012 07:54:03 pm

I do almost all of my teaching from a computer nowadays. I find children can do 200+ questions an hour if they come from a computer. They just click and grade. They can compare their answers immediately with what they said.

At the end of the hour, the computer gives statistics on questions right and wrong.

Immediate feedback!

We live in a computer age and I think children just expect stuff to be on a computer, and take it more seriously if it is a machine giving the questions.

And, tangentially related, nobody minds too much if a machine says you got the question wrong, at least compared to another human being telling you that you can't do stuff.

Andrew Spinner link
11/12/2012 03:02:20 am

We are finding many educators who use classroom engagement tools, such as Understoodit.com, to be better able to keep student's attention. Using devices they likely are getting distracted with (cell phones, laptops, etc), these devices are used to engage students into paying attention, and ultimately, being more engaged in the lecture being presented. We would love to hear from more teachers, as we're open to hearing about all points of view.

Please do email me your thoughts to andrew@understoodit.com. We hope to write a blog post about this in the near future.


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