Fine ideas for a new year

Just a few ideas as we plunge into a new year.

Mindsets, mind shifts, learning and the brain, Fixed vs Growth mindsets. Subtle but critical shifts in thinking. I came across this handy visual with thought suggestion shifts for students who get stuck in their mindsets:


And  Growth vs. Fixed mindset:

And the research associated with it.

And for those of us in the neighbourhood, the New York Times feature Gerrard & Coxwell's Little India this summer:

Digital distractions in class

I just read this very compelling article about "lids down", or having students not use any digital devices during his lectures or class discussions:

Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away 

by Clay Shirky

https://medium.com/@cshirky/why-i-just-asked-my-students-to-put-their-laptops-away-7f5f7c50f368

As a professor (of social media no less), lectures are a normal mode of teaching, as distinct from our more active learning classroom processes K-12. 

But he does a great job of explaining the challenges of maintaining attention and focus while being distracted with personal devices set up precisely to do just that. 

I've pulled out a few quotes here, so except for {curly brackets mine}, these are Clay Shirky's words:

·         Stay focused. (No devices in class, unless the assignment requires it.)
·         Both the form and the content of a Facebook update are almost irresistibly distracting, especially compared with the hard slog of coursework.
·         Humans are incapable of ignoring surprising new information in our visual field...
·         Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor of the elephant and the rider is useful… the mind is like an elephant (the emotions) with a rider (the intellect) on top. The rider can see and plan ahead, but the elephant is far more powerful. Sometimes the rider and the elephant work together (the ideal in classroom settings), but if they conflict, the elephant usually wins. {especially in young people}
·         {...came to view students as ...} people trying to pay attention but having to compete with various influences, the largest of which is their own propensity towards involuntary and emotional reaction.
·         Regarding teaching as a shared struggle changes the nature of the classroom. It’s not me demanding that they focus — it’s me and them working together to help defend their precious focus against outside distractions. I have a classroom full of riders and elephants, but I’m trying to teach the riders.
·         ...it’s me against a brilliant and well-funded army.... These {software/app/device} designers and engineers have every incentive to capture as much of my students’ attention as they possibly can, without regard for any commitment those students may have made to me or to themselves about keeping on task.
·         The fact that hardware and software is being professionally designed to distract was the first thing that made me willing to require rather than merely suggest that students not use devices in class. 
·         Anyone distracted in class doesn't just lose out on the content of the discussion, they create a sense of permission that opting out is OK, and, worse, a haze of second-hand distraction for their peers. 
·         ...not a switch in rules, but a switch in how I see my role. Professors are at least as bad at estimating how interesting we are as the students are at estimating their ability to focus.
·         I’m coming to see student focus as a collaborative process. It’s me and them working to create a classroom where the students who want to focus have the best shot at it, in a world increasingly hostile to that goal.

This is primarily directed at lectures and seminar discussions, not the intentional and purposeful use of digital devices for learning and creating in our classrooms.

Using board-provided devices over personal devices may lessen a degree of distraction as they are not usually set up with the myriad of personalized social media plug-ins that constantly intrude.

Digital note-taking is also becoming a legitimately preferred mode for many (myself included), so we'll need to work extra hard to help our students block out distractions.

Perhaps some of them would like to read this article. 

Onward!