Teaching Comparative

Food for thought for teachers

I know the temptation. I often watch television with my PowerBook on my lap to fill those empty moments (like advertising). I also know I miss things when I multitask. And our students?

From the Washington Post

Teens Can Multitask, But What Are Costs? Ability to Analyze May Be Affected, Experts Worry

"... Call it multitasking homework, Generation 'Net style.

"The students who do it say multitasking makes them feel more productive and less stressed. Researchers aren't sure what the long-term impact will be because no studies have probed its effect on teenage development. But some fear that the penchant for flitting from task to task could have serious consequences on young people's ability to focus and develop analytical skills.

"There is special concern for teenagers because parts of their brain are still developing, said Jordan Grafman, chief of cognitive neuroscience at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke...

"Whatever the consequences of multitasking, they're going to be widespread. A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that when students are sitting in front of their computers 'studying,' they're also doing something else 65 percent of the time. In 1999, 16 percent of teenagers said they were 'media multitaskers' -- defined as using several type of media, such as television or computers, at once. By 2005, that percentage had increased to 26 percent. The foundation also found that girls were more likely to media multitask than boys.

"The current generation of teens 'is trying to do lots of multitasking because they think it's cool and less boring and because they have lots of gadgets that help them be more successful at this,' said David Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan. 'The belief is they're getting good at this and that they're much better than the older generation at it and that there's no cost to their efficiency.'

"Meyer, a psychologist and cognitive scientist who studies multitasking, has doubts...

"Researchers say there isn't any answer yet to whether multitasking helps, hurts or has no effect on teens' development.

"'Given that kids have grown up always doing this, it may turn out that they are more skilled at it. We just don't know yet,' said Russell Poldrack, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles, who co-authored a study that examined multitasking and brain activity...

"Multitaskers 'may not be building the same knowledge that they would be if they were focusing,' Poldrack said. 'While multitasking makes them feel like they are being more efficient, research suggests that there's very little you can do that involves multitasking that you can be as good at when you're not multitasking.'..."

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Labels: pedagogy

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:10 AM