I agree with a lot of what the articles had to say
about the behaviors of many of my students. I have noticed that many students
their attention spans are a lot shorter and continue to get shorter. Talking
with fellow co-workers and from my work with the children it is a struggle to
keep them focused on a task for long periods of time while keeping it
entertaining for them so they will learn. Prensky made a valid point that
children now days their brains are wired differently and as educators we must
adapt to those changes instead of trying to make them live in the past. These
changes have a lot to do with technology and fact they spend time on the
technology collecting information and socializing. In the classroom, students
want instant gratification in everything that they are learning which makes it hard
if they are struggling in a subject matter. I work with students that struggle
with reading and math. I see that they don’t understand why they are even
working with me because they feel that already know how to read and do math.
When the students do not get the correct answer the first time and go back to
do the task again and still fail they get frustrated and shut down. They do
understand that sometime things take time to master and you don’t always get
something at the first try. McKenzie has it right when he said “Facebook,
MySpace, and Second Life are poor substitutes for face to face communities and
the playground.” The fact that most of the socializing is done through an
electronic device students it hard for them to interact with each other face to
face. I see on the playground everyday students lack the social cues to
interact with each other. I see students wondering around the playground with a
ball in their hand looking like they don’t know what to do with it, they don’t
know how to approach someone and ask if they would like to play with them or if
they do go up to someone they are so direct that they are practically tell the
other student that they are going to play with them. Conflict resolution skills are
non-existent. They can’t solve a conflict on their own peacefully without arguing
over the incident and blaming each other. My school struggles with this every
day on the playground that is why our school is rolling out the Playworks
program to help get our students to interact with each other in structured play
where everyone is included and can learn ways to solve conflicts on their own and
empower them to learn.
Strong post, Paul.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have noticed that attention spans seem to be shorter and shorter these days compared to my youth. This is primarily because students exist in a state of instant gratification today outside of the classroom, so it makes it more difficult to wait for the payoff of instruction that may take days to weeks to come to fruition. It's great, however, that we are able to acknowledge this as an educational community, so that we may begin to alter our instruction to cater to their needs. One way I have dealt with that is to give my students as much choice as possible in their learning and to try to cut my lessons to small mini-lessons where students learn a skill for 5-10 minutes and then practice it in real-time with specific feedback as often as I can. It doesn't always work, but when they are physically trying something, they tend to be more engaged and interested in their learning.
I think your school's Playworks program sounds amazing - though it may seem difficult for us to understand how our students can struggle with basic social skills, educating this skill set has always been a component of schools and may be increasing in importance now more than ever. Twenge (2009) seems hint at this when she talks about how to educate children from today's generation- through specific modeling and quick, deliberate feedback. In spite of what they may show us on the surface, inside there is still an innate desire in our students to please the teacher and to learn how to do something. If we give them particular rules and structure ahead of time, and then monitor and provide feedback to help them to reach mastery, we can make a major difference in what we see in the playground or the classroom. My biggest observation when I visit the classrooms of my colleagues is that students can be as chaotic or as respectful as the teacher wants them to be. It is more about laying the groundwork and the expectations early on in order to create the ideal environment for learning. They tend to match what we expect of them, and the further I get into this career, the more I realize how important it is to be open-minded and flexible with instruction to best meet student needs.
By the way, I love your part about students "feel they already know how" to do something that you are trying to help them with, and can wilt when given criticism. How do you address this issue in your classroom? Like many, I always struggle helping strugglers, and would love to hear the perspective of a teacher who focuses on this group of students.
Alan to tell you the truth I struggle with finding ways to help my struggling student. I find that being positive and celebrating their successes help. Also most of the time many of my students are coming to me feeling like they know what we are working on already so when you explain how to do it and they continue to look at you with a blank stair no matter how you change your explanation can get every frustration and not showing your frustrations is also key. I also just watch their frustration level and when I feel they are about to give up I have to stop and move on to something else and come back to it. I try to relate my explanations to that child's interests and to keep it fun. I use a lot of games, repetitions, and stories as to why things are the way they are.
DeleteAs I mentioned in another thread, our brains ARE different than children's because brains change over time; it's called development and neuroplasticity. The comparison should be between children based on their exposure to technology (rural vs. urban vs. affluent vs. remote), since we can't go back in time to look at our childhood brains.
ReplyDeleteThere is something interesting about motivation and interest in games based on the feedback loop. And we can do that to some extent in the classroom when it comes to educational games based on factual knowledge or correct answers (e.g., math problems). However, immediate feedback on things like writing or higher-order thinking, is next to impossible (how quickly can you grade 150 essays?).
Alan's last comment gets into things like engagement (a term everybody uses but for which no one can recite a common definition), persistence, and resilience. These factors are often linked to determining whether or not students remain in difficult classes or 'give up'.
That is true our students brain are fluid and constantly changing they are also sponges and pick up on everything even when we don't realize it. So our students behaviors of feeling entitle comes mostly from their parents and society. It is hard as a teacher to constantly fight with a parent that thinks there is nothing wrong with their child. I know that the teachers that I work with feel that each and everyday. I work in a Title One School sometimes getting the help that our students need is an up hill battle. I know even when I working with my group of struggling students sometime their frustrations brings them to tears. Then they go home an tell their parents come roaring into school because their child was crying in class because they were less successful on a particular skill looking for heads to roll because their perfect child was crying in class instead of trying to find a solution to why their child is struggling. I get sometime the solutions cost money that most of parents at my school can't afford or they feel that child is prefect and don't need the help. Most of these issues that we are having with this generation steams from how they parents and society are teaching them. Like they old saying goes it takes a village to raise a child as a society we are being less successful.
DeletePaul, great insight on how our children today respond to social interaction. I always celebrated the fact that the students are quick learner. But they do become upset when processing new information don't come easy. I guess always having the answer at their fingertips makes problem-solving a harder. Nevertheless, problem-solving and social skills is important for success and relationships in the future.
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ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that I agree with the point that attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Much of that has to do with the perception of attention.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know if someone is truly listening? What does paying attention look like? Is it possible that someone can appear completely off-task, but still be dialed in to what's going on around them?
One of my second grade teachers, almost sixteen years ago, tried to convince my parents that I was LD because I stared out the window during class, or doodled pictures while the teacher was talking. My mom recommended that the teacher ask me questions intermittently to see if I was paying attention enough to answer. Each time, I would answer quickly and accurately, to the extent that the teacher apologized to my mom later.
Jeremy attention does look very different from child to child and you cant tell if a child is paying attention to what is going on in class just by looking at them. You can tell if a student is not on task because their focus has changed to something or someone else. The amount of time for the point in which you start a lesson and the students are engaged in the task to the point in which their focus change is getting shorter and shorter. When I am in class and giving instruction or leading a discussion and I see a child staring out a window or even doodling I would shoot them a question to make sure they are listening. That is different then having their attention.
ReplyDeleteEngagement is not easy to see (see https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/01/21/are-your-students-engaged-dont-be-so-sure/). I would also look at Phillip Schlechty's continuum of engagement (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/52284045647994766). This is why I mentioned that people have trouble defining engagement, but use the word all of the time. It's a mix of attention and commitment. Your typical grade-chaser (only concerned about the A; forgets everything after the test) has a high GPA but is not engaged, but most will look at him/her and say s/he is.
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