Attention

There was an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education last week http://chronicle.com/article/Scholars-Turn-Their-Attention/63746/

The focus was on attention spans, multitasking, and teaching. There were many interesting ideas, but two really caught MY attention. The first was the discussion of the studies showing that for the most part we can remember 7 units of information. I had heard and read this before, although I had never seen the source of that fact. It got me to thinking about teaching and how to present information in a way that will be remembered. We can remember 7 digit phone numbers, but we can remembe longer strings of information if we "chunk" the information--break the information into pieces that we recall as a whole. If we remember 7 chunks of 7 digits we can remember a string of 49 digits!! I wonder if I should organize my lectures and notes into chunks better, into pieces of information that will be more easily remembered.

The other point was about student multitasking. Should an instructor ban phones, laptops, newspapers, etc? Or tolerate them? Some of my colleagues have very strict rules about reading newspapers, etc, in class. I tend not to care, as long as the person isn't making noise or distracting those around her. If students don't need the information I'm presenting, that is a decision they make, not me.