Whenever we enter into conversation about teaching and learning, we inevitable end up talking about how distracted our students have become. We ponder ways to pull them back in, something active learning has proved to be adept at but there is still room for improvement. Reading James M. Lang's latest post, tells me that the faculty at BRCC are joined by colleagues around the world who are facing the same situation. One of the quotes from the post that really stuck with me is, "The arrival and widespread adoption of new technologies has occurred in increasingly intense bursts. In The Distracted Mind, Gazzaley and Rosen point out that, if you assume a benchmark of 50 million worldwide users, radio arrived at that level within 38 years of its invention. The time frame shrinks with each new invention: telephone, 20 years; television, 13 years; cellphones; 12 years; the internet, four years. Social media amped up the curve: Facebook, two years; YouTube, one year. And the winner, at least at the time of their writing the book? "Angry Birds" took over our lives in 35 days." We know our brains grow and adapt. We know that we continue to learn throughout our lives. We know a lot about how technology disruption changes things for us no matter the delivery modality. What we don't know is how to effectively use the technology (usually smart phones or tablets) without causing what education scientists call the "lingering effect." I think we do what we have always done and that is to try different approaches using the new tools. But we must share our results with each other and grow the research resources so that we can improve student success and continue to add tools to our teaching toolkit. What do you think?

Dr. James M. Lang explores the distracted classroom in his latest post to the Chronicle. We have all been there, so his article is very relevant and timely. He sites research by Gazzaley and Rosen that could help us bring our student's focus back to the topic at hand. He writes, "One day near the end of the spring semester last year, I was standing at the front of the room in my British literature survey course, as students completed a writing exercise. One of the best students in the class, 'Kate,' finished early and sat back to await our discussion. This talented senior represented something of a puzzle to me. On the one hand, she wrote well, contributed to discussions, sat in the front row every class period, and was always pleasant. On the other hand, she sometimes seemed distracted in class, as if she were secretly on her phone or using social media on a laptop. But no laptop or phone was ever in sight. I chalked up her occasional inattention to senioritis. Once the class discussion began that day, I had drifted toward the row of desks where Kate sat when something on the floor caught my eye — it was a flash of light, as if from a cellphone. Kate was staring down at it as well, in one of her distracted states. I realized that she was gazing inside her purse, where her phone had been carefully positioned to allow her to see any texts that arrived during class. She couldn’t respond to them, but she could read them. New ones lit up her black screen, and she just had to turn her head ever so slightly to keep up with her group chats throughout the class session." Continue reading the full article here.