Appropriate, Engaging & Relevant: Helping student be less distracted when using technology

What struck me about reading Are Your Students Distracted by Screens? Here’s A Powerful Antidote (by Tom Daccord) was a feeling that we spend too much time blaming the internet and computers / devices for students not concentrating on their work. We've had this discussion before, but this short article brings it all together nicely, and the obvious is more obvious.

Essentially, our lessons should be appropriate, engaging, and relevant. They should be meaningful.

No doubt teachers can be frustrated with policing what students look at on their screens. The author is against blocking internet sites. I'm torn on this one, because I've experienced a school that blocks, and though students will find something to occupy their 'disengaged moments', fewer options may help. (I stress, may help) I'm against remotely monitoring screens. Daccord notes that some educators have cleverly suggested that pulling up games, apps, and social networking sites when bored is simply doodling of the 21st Century. This leads me to a belief I've had since I started teaching: students will find a way to deal with boredom. Some act out of line, some doodle or write poems, some pass notes, others skip classes, and some might sit and daydream. (I did all of the above)

A point the author makes is one I've made a million times: adults do it, too. How many of us have seen faculty (often ones who complain about student engagement) checking e-mail, prepping lessons, or on Facebook during faculty meetings? Perhaps some faulty meetings need to include more of an emphasis on teaching teachers to develop engaging lessons.

So what is a good lesson, Daccord asks us? One that is challenging and has high expectations. I'll add to this what I wrote above. Lessons also have to be appropriate, engaging, and relevant. Students have to be asked to solve problems, to troubleshoot, to create, reflect, and collaborate. (I could write many a verb here) Lessons (content?) must be as personal as possible. Moreover, which Daccord also notes, students should be told why they are studying or doing something. Doesn't it make sense to be able to explain why? I would think many students (and parents) want to how a teacher arrived at a grade, so it makes sense to me that we should be able to explain the purpose of lessons and assessments, and do it beyond 'it's mandated in the curriculum'.

So, as  a final comment, I'll give my view that we shouldn't be blaming technology. People will seek ways to handle boredom regardless of the level of technology available to their school, so we have to put purpose into what we're doing as educators.

The Story of Sugata Mitra's Experiments with Self-Teaching

An autodidact is a self-taught person. Something I love about this whole story (or experiment, rather) is that it demonstrates how intelligent kids really are. Being a teacher who has taught second language learners I have first hand experience with young people who have difficulty expressing themselves or demonstrating knowledge in a second language, but are otherwise highly intelligent people. 

Sugata Mitra is an education scientist from India. His TED talk, “New Experiments in Self-Teaching” is something all educators should study. Mitra suggests that good teachers don’t want to go in the places they are most needed (ie) impoverished communities/ countries. I have to agree with this, as a generalization. There are those teachers who love to travel and teach, but the best ones often aim for the elite schools.

The First Experiment

Mitra embedded computer touch screens into the walls of public spaces (slums, in particular) in several countries worldwide and waited for the results. (public "hole in the wall" computers) The conclusion was that children are not only keen to explore, but they also have the ability to teach themselves to use computers without guidance: when are interested, they learn. (he jokes about how an extended version of the experiment, using speech to text software, led to children having changed their accents to be understood by the program) Another interesting observation Mitra had was that over several months children retained more information when they worked at a computer, but collaboratively. One computer for four students is one of Mitra’s criteria – forcing collaboration. He concluded in his experiments that one computer for one child hinders learning. (being at a one-to-one school, I can see this, though it’s a generalization and very much context-based)

Furthering the experiment, Mitra went into classrooms, with 4 students to 1 computer, and would ask them a tough question for them to figure out. Eventually they do. One question I have, though, is what quality the collaboration is. It’s human nature to have a leader and follower, even in situations of good collaboration, and some know more than others. To be fair, I haven’t looked at data from the experiments, but how does Mitra learn about the nature of the collaboration? Was it one student that had the tech skills and / or mind to figure out the answers? When a group solves a problem we have to question how they solved it and what contribution each student made.

Self-Organized Learning Environments

Mitra also discusses SOLE - self organized learning environments. His experiments are the foundation of this idea that we can organize our learning independently. (though I’ve not read Mitra suggest this is the best form of learning, but merely one facet of how we learn) “To go further, Dr. Mitra supplements SOLE with e-mediators, or the "granny cloud" as he calls it: amateur volunteers who use Skype to help kids learn online. (source)” A recent Google Power Searching course I recently took reminds me a little of the skills needed to search effectively for answers. The skills learned are not advanced in the sense that it takes a while to learn, but the search strategies are not always intuitive.

I think I need to lean more about SOLE.

Wall Street Journal Article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704584804575645070639938954.html

Here is an example school package that outlines a SOLE program based on Mitra’s work:

http://repository.alt.ac.uk/2208/)

Mitra also has a book, Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning.