Attention & learning

Photo credit: Foter.com

Attention & learning
For learning to take place, attention and memory have to be in place (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014). As a teacher, we have to carefully plan by choosing topics or means that most effectively lead to the desired outcome. Sensorial input, especially with young learners, has to be cleverly used by designers so that the process of perception gets amplified (National Geographic, 2014).
For success, count on “emotionally charged stimuli (to) capture attention” (Chun, Golomb & Turk-Browne, 2011, p. 89) and this is what a fellow teacher did when preparing a class on hot/cold concepts for a group of 2 year-olds learning English.
To capture their attention, she brought to class ice cubes and a hair drier. She presented the concepts unitarily using a different location corner in the room. Students felt the stimulus while the teacher enunciated the concept out loud many times (Ex.: Can you feel the cold? Is it too cold for you? Do you like the cold?).
Later, she blindfolded them and asked them to say out loud what stimulus s/he was getting. Students were so attentive, focused and ecstatic, so completely absorbed in the task that the memory retrieval was easily accomplished. The class unfolded into different settings and challenges for students to practice and consolidate the material, but the key factor was orienting students’ attention to the stimuli in a engaging student-centered way that allowed such young minds (with short attention span) to stay focused and maintain their interest throughout the class.
How attentive are you to the sensorial input you can explore in class?
References

Chun, M. M., Golomb, J. D., & Turk-Browne, N. B. (2011). A taxonomy of external and internal attention. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 73-101. Retrieved from http://www.iapsych.com/articles/chun2011.pdf

National Geographic, Discovery, & History TV. (2014). National Geographic Test your Brain 1 of 3 Pay Attention Part 1. [video] (8:54). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEjHmyYJl9c
Tokuhama-Espinosa, t. (2014). Making Classrooms Better: 50 Applications of Mind, Brain and Education Science. New York. WW Norton & Company

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memorizing what you want to learn

Image
How to better memorize what you want to learn? Photo credit: Foter.com I subscribe to what William James once said “It is our attitude at the beginning of a task which, more than anything else, will determine its outcome.”  But positive attitude cannot counteract the substantive small amount of short term memory we have (Miller, 1956). So, I respect my cognitive load (De Jong, 2010) and take the time I need to absorb the material given. I explore it in my own time (be it more or less than the average) by breaking the content into small, manageable chunks that I can better manipulate in my working memory while I strengthen, through revision and repetition, the synapses I already had or create new ones that encode new memories (Vanderbilt, 2014). Once content is in my ‘hands’ I apply different strategies: cognitive, memory, compensation, communication, metacognitive, affective and social (Oxford and Crookall, 1989). Moreover, I do lots of testing: quizzes, retelling,...
Read more

Learning about Toxic Stress - a personal account

Image
Photo by Suzer Jones on Foter.com / CC BY-NC   During a period of almost a decade I had the opportunity to learn about toxic stress on a personal level. Not that it had me as a target, my stress levels have always remained at the tolerable threshold, and that has made me very appreciative for the wealth of opportunities I had been granted since inception. What I am about to describe took place while I worked voluntarily as a teacher of English to many groups of very low SES students from 10 to 18 years of age who were part of an NGO (non-governmental office) that catered to their various – and multiple – needs in tandem with their regular schooling (when that happened). The case in point is about a girl, let’s call her Luisa, about 11 years old but very much underdeveloped physically and cognitively for her age bracket. Luisa was one among five siblings who lived miserably in a slum located in the south zone of São Paulo, Brazil. She had no sanitation, nor regular electr...
Read more

The importance of clarity and goals for learning

Image
This article first appeared at  JALT Mind, Brain, and Education SIG, Volume 5, Issue 1 (ISSN: 2434-1002) Photo by matthiaswerner on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA   There is one valuable idea in educational neuroscience that has changed my thinking: the brain cannot not learn , but it changed me in a way you might not expect. When we read that the brain cannot not learn, those of us that have no knowledge about how the brain really works might think it easy for the brain to harness untapped potentials that make becoming a genius, or a recognized expert, within easy reach for all of us.   However, that is not true. That is precisely why we must start digging for more knowledge about our neurological processes that promote learning because believing without knowing is akin to preaching without doing and, in both cases, the result is doomed to be disastrous (Kahneman, 2002). Let us start by examining the fact that the brain cannot not learn. This, by the way, is a...
Read more