Understanding Limitations of Attention
On Thursday, I attended a webinar Q&A with Dr. Michelle Miller, Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. Her research in the past several years has focused on attention, distraction, and memory. One particularly controversial topic discussed here and across the country is the use of technology in face-to-face classrooms.
Almost everyone I’ve talked with, at the very least, acknowledges the likelihood of distraction when computers enter the classroom. This consideration has understandably led many instructors to ban computers from their classes, encouraging students to take notes using a traditional pen and paper instead. While Dr. Miller respects that these distractions are a danger, she uses a different approach in her classes to addressing it: engage in a conversation with the students about how those distractions impact their learning.
“Faced with the false choice of ban or go all in for technology, we need to partner with students to manage this aspect of contemporary life.” -Dr. Miller
Dr. Miller argues that the path toward managing these distractions and helping our students successfully engage in classroom interactions lies in helping them acknowledge the limitations of their attention and harness their note-taking efforts to move from transcription to more advantageous synthesis of content.
When Dr. Miller presented at UNL in 2017, she shared a resource she developed for Northern Arizona University to help raise student awareness about the importance and limitations of attention. With Dr. Miller’s cooperation, my teammate Eyde Olson and I adapted this module for delivery through Canvas.
This module is comprised of three parts: (1) helping students understand what they know about attention and overcome misconceptions, (2) demonstrating the result of attention overload so they can see why it’s important to have a personal strategy, and (3) facilitating the development of a personal strategy to manage attention. If you would like to explore this module further you can either look through the Faculty Guide or import the module into a Canvas sandbox to explore the materials directly (just search the Canvas Commons for “Attention Matters”).
If you’re interested in reading more, I encourage you to check out Dr. Michelle Miller’s blog post on managing technological distractions in the class. The Teaching & Learning Center is also eager to help facilitate these conversations with your students if you are uncomfortable in this space. If you would like to utilize the Attention Matters module or partner with us to develop a note-taking intervention, please email teach.business@unl.edu. If there’s interest in using the Attention Matters module, I’m happy to spend some time giving the materials a DesignTools facelift for use in the College of Business. 😄
