attention – Education & Teacher Conferences

Guest Blogger

March-23-2025

Attention Must Be Paid

This guest review of Blake Harvard’s Do I Have Your Attention is written by Justin Cerenzia.

Having followed Blake Harvard’s “The Effortful Educator” blog from its very beginning, it feels especially fitting that his new book – Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning – poses a question many of us have enthusiastically answered “yes” to for nearly a decade.

Yet this book represents more than an extension of Harvard’s blog—it marks the culmination of his long-standing influence as a leading educator: one who connects cognitive science with classroom practice. Thoughtfully structured into two complementary sections, the book skillfully integrates theoretical perspectives on how memory functions with actionable classroom strategies, offering educators practical tools to foster meaningful and lasting learning.

Harvard deftly navigates the complexities often inherent in cognitive science research. His writing style is both approachable and authoritative, resonating equally with newcomers and seasoned readers alike.

Much of Part I leverages Professor Stephen Chew’s An Advance Organizer for Student Learning: Choke Points and Pitfalls in Studying. Harvard uses this foundational framework to clarify key concepts and common misunderstandings about memory and learning. Crucially, Harvard’s position as a classroom teacher lends him credibility and authenticity, grounding his insights firmly in practical experience rather than mere theory.

It’s as though we’re invited into Blake’s classroom, watching him expertly guide us through Chew’s graphic.

And this is precisely how he frames the opening of Part II, writing:

“It can be quite overwhelming to know just what is the best bet for optimizing working memory without overloading it while also making the most of moving the content to long-term memory. Compound that with the fact we are tasked with educating, not one brain, but a classroom full of them. That’s a job that only a teacher can understand and appreciate” (65).

Harvard then succinctly-yet-thoroughly guides readers through seven carefully considered strategies to maximize learning. In each case, he showcases a diverse array of tactics that enrich any skilled teacher’s toolkit—all with the ultimate goal of positively influencing student outcomes.

Throughout, he pulls back the curtain even further, transparently revealing how specific shifts in his own teaching practice improved student learning. Clearly, each change has been guided by careful investigation and thoughtful application of research.

That Harvard’s insights—long influential in the educational blogosphere—are now available in book form represents a win for educators everywhere. Rich in research yet highly accessible, this text serves as both an inviting entry point and a resource for deeper exploration.

So too does it underscore the essential role teachers can and should play alongside the research community, brokering knowledge and further bridging the unnecessary divide that sometimes impedes meaningful change. In an era rife with educational theory, Harvard’s concrete examples of classroom success help ensure that even hesitant educators find meaningful, practical guidance.

If Blake Harvard didn’t already have your attention, you’d do well to give it to him now.

If you’d like to learn more, Blake’s webinar on attention and memory will be May 4.

Justin Cerenzia is the Buckley Executive Director of Episcopal Academy’s Center for Teaching and Learning. A Philadelphia area native, Justin is a veteran of three independent schools over the last two decades, dedicating his career to advancing educational excellence and innovation. A history teacher by trade, Justin nonetheless considers the future of education to be a central focus of his work. At Episcopal Academy, he leads initiatives that blend cognitive science, human connection, and an experimenter’s mindset to enhance teaching and learning. With a passion for fostering curious enthusiasm and pragmatic optimism, Justin strives to make the Center a beacon of learning for educators both within and beyond the school.

Attention Contagion in the “Real World”: Plato was Right!

Andrew Watson

September-08-2024

Attention Contagion in the “Real World”: Plato was Right!

I’m always grateful to have research guidance for my classroom work, but I have to admit: it can take A LONG TIME.

For instance, I’ve got an upcoming blog post about reseach into figdet spinners — and those little guys were a thing back in 2017. It took (can it be?) SEVEN years to look into their benefits/harms for students with ADHD.

However, I have to say that attention contagion is moving quickly.

I first heard about attention contagion — the idea that students can “catch” attentiveness, and inattentiveness, from each other — this summer. Back in that blog post, I noted that we’ve got only two recent studies on the topic. We need more research — and research in conditions that look like real classrooms — before we make too much of this concept.

Well, this research team (led by Noah Forrin) must have heard my request — they ALREADY have another study out. And, this one looks at students in a classroom-like setting. SO COOL.

The Setup

Team Forrin set up a fairly typical lecture hall scenario: rows of desks facing a large screen, where a video tape of lecture played.

60 students attended this “lecture,” and took notes as they did so. Afterwards they took a quiz on the lecture content and filled out a survey about the experience.

Here’s the key: fifteen of those 60 students were — basically — college-age actors. (The technical word is “confederates.”)

For half of the lectures, these actors were trained to be attentive: they took notes, sat upright, focused on the lecture video, and looked intersted.

For the other half, they were trained to be inattentive: they took no notes, slouched, looked around, and looked bored.

Notice — this detail will be important — the inattentive students were not distracting. They didn’t fidget or stretch or yawn or tap their pens or play games on laptops. (In fact, laptops and cell phones were not allowed.)

Importantly, the seating was carefully arranged. The non-actors were seated either…

… between actors, or

…behind or in front of actors, or

… far away from actors.

So, here are the questions:

Did the students catch attentiveness from the actors? Or, did they catch INattentiveness from actors?

And: did the seating location matter? Specifically, did the in between students or the in front/behind students react differently than the far away students?

The Payoff

Forrin and his colleagues had A LOT of data to sort, and I won’t go through it all. The results, in my view, aren’t terribly surprising — but they are very interesting. And, helpful.

First: yes, students could catch inattention from the actors.

Researchers know this because, when seated near inattentive actors:

On their surveys, the students rated themselves as more inattentive.

The took fewer notes.

They scored lower on the post-lecture quiz.

Second: students catch inattention when sitting next to or between inattentive actors.

I am — honestly — not surprised that students seated far away didn’t catch inattentiveness. (If you check out the seating diagram on page 4 of the study, you’ll see why.)

I am — and the researchers were — surprised that students DIDN’T catch inattentiveness when sitting behind or in front of inattentive actors.

By the way, you remember the important detail from above: the actors were trained to be inattentive but not distracting. Sure enough, those end-of-lecture surveys showed that the students were not distracted by classmates.

This point merits focus because we can have some confidence that the problem was actual inattentiveness — not distraction. The researchers, in other words, effectively isolated a variable — even though it’s a difficult one to isolate.

Practical Implications

Teachers since Plato have known to sit the distractible students between focused students. Well, this research suggests that we’ve been right all along.

More surprising, sitting students in front of or behind attentive peers doesn’t (in this study) have the same effect.

And, completely unsurprisingly, students sitting far away from attentive peers do not “catch” their focus.

Forrin’s team concludes by suggesting that further research be done in actual classrooms. Here’s hoping they publish that study soon!

Forrin, N. D., Kudsi, N., Cyr, E. N., Sana, F., Davidesco, I., & Kim, J. A. (2024). Investigating attention contagion between students in a lecture hall. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology.

Thanks to professor Mike Hobbiss for drawing my attention to this study.

Can students “catch” attention? Introducing “Attention Contagion”

Andrew Watson

May-05-2024

Can students “catch” attention? Introducing “Attention Contagion”

Every teacher knows: students won’t learn much if they don’t pay attention. How can we help them do so? (In my experience, shouting “pay attention!” over and over doesn’t work very well…)

So, what else can we do?

As is so often the case, I think “what should we do?” isn’t exactly the right question.

Instead, we teachers should ask: “how should we THINK ABOUT what we do?”

When we have good answers to the “how-do-we-think?” question, we can apply those thought processes to our own classrooms and schools.

So, how should we think about attention?

Let me introduce “attention contagion”…

Invisible Peer Pressure

A research team in Canada wanted to know: can students “catch” attention from one another? How about inattention?

That is: if Student A pays attention, will that attentiveness cause Student B to pay more attention as well?

Or, if Student A seems inattentive, what happens with Student B?

To study this question, a research team led by Dr. Noah Forrin had two students — A and B — watch a 50 minute video in the same small classroom.

In this case, “Student A” was a “confederate”: that is, s/he had been trained…

to “pay attention”: that is, focus on the video and take frequent notes, or

NOT to “pay attention”: that is, slouch, take infrequent notes, glance at the clock.

Student A sat diagonally in front of Student B, visible but off to the side.

What effect did A’s behavior have on B?

Well, when A paid attention, B

… reported focusing more,

… focused more, got less drowsy, and fidgeted less,

… took more notes, and

… remembered slightly more on a subsequent multiple-choice quiz.

These results seem all the more striking because the inattentive confederate had been trained NOT to be conspicuously distracting. NO yawning. NO fidgeting. NO pen tapping.

The confederates, in other words, didn’t focus on the video, but didn’t try to draw focus themselves. That simple lack of focus — even without conspicuous, noisy distraction — sapped Student B’s attention.

Things Get Weird

So far, this study (probably) confirms teacherly intuition. I’m not terribly suprised that one student’s lack of focus has an effect on other students. (Forrin’s research team wasn’t surprised either. They had predicted all these results, and have three different theories to explain them.)

But: what happens if Student A sits diagonally BEHIND Student B, instead of diagonally in front?

Sure enough, Forrin’s team found the same results.

Student B caught Student A’s inattention, even if s/he couldn’t see it.

I have to say: that result seems quite arresting.

Forrin and Co. suggest that Student B could hear Student A taking notes — or not taking notes. And this auditory cue served as a proxy for attentiveness more broadly.

But whatever the reason, “attention contagion” happens whether or not students can see each other. (Remember: the confederates had been trained not to be audibly distracting — no sighs, no taps, no restless jostling about.)

Classroom Implications

I wrote at the top that teachers can use research to guide our thinking. So, what should we DO when we THINK about attention contagion?

To me, this idea shifts the focus somewhat from individual students to classroom norms.

That is: in the old days, I wanted that-student-right-there to pay attention. To do so, I talked to that-there-student. (“Eyes on the board, please, Bjorn.”)

If attention contagion is a thing, I can help that-student-right-there pay attention by ensuring ALL students are paying attention.

If almost ALL of my students focus, that-student-right-there might “catch” their attentiveness and focus as well.

Doug Lemov — who initially drew my attention to this study — rightly points to Peps Mccrea’s work.

Mccrea has written substantively about the importance of classroom norms. When teachers establish focus as a classroom norm right from the beginning, this extra effort will pay off down the road.

The best strategy to do so will vary from grade to grade, culture to culture, teacher to teacher. But this way of thinking can guide us in doing in our specific classroom context.

Yes, Yes: Caveats

I should point out that the concept of “attention contagion” is quite new — and its newness means we don’t have much reasearch at all on the topic.

Forrin’s team has replicated the study with online classrooms (here) — but these are the only two studies on the topic that I know of.

And: two studies is a VERY SMALL number.

Note, too, that the research was done (for very good reasons) in a highly artificial context.

So, we have good reason to be curious about pursuing this possibility. But we should not take “attention contagion” to be a settled conclusion in educational psychology research.

TL;DR

To help our students pay attention, we can work with individual students on their behavior and focus.

And, we can emphasize classroom norms of focus — norms that might help students “catch” attention from one another.

Especially if more classroom research reinforces this practice, we can rethink attention with “contagion” in mind — and thus help our students learn.

Forrin, N. D., Huynh, A. C., Smith, A. C., Cyr, E. N., McLean, D. B., Siklos-Whillans, J., … & MacLeod, C. M. (2021). Attention spreads between students in a learning environment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 27(2), 276.

Andrew Watson

April-14-2024

Just In Case: Improving Online Learning

We teachers benefit A LOT from research-based guidance, but we do have to acknowledge a few drawbacks:

We can easily find LOTS of contradictory studies out there — so confusing!

The students or curriculum being researched might not be a good match for our own — so puzzling!

And

Research takes a long time — so frustrating!

In other words: we REALLY needed advice about online teaching during the pandemic-related Zoominess. But — because “research takes a long time” — we just didn’t have lots of relevant studies to guide us.

Of course, we’re now starting to get those studies we needed a few years ago: better now than never, I say.

To be sure, few of us hope to return to full-time online teaching. But:

Some people do this work for a living (I have a friend who devotes herself to this work).

Some school districts use Zoom during snow storms (or eclipses).

Sometimes, online teaching is just practically required. I recently led a 2 hour PD workshop in Singapore…while I was in London.

So, we still benefit from learning about this online teaching research — even if most of us hope we’ll use it only rarely.

What useful nuggets have come to the surface?

Defeating the Blahs

If you’ve taught online, you know how quickly the blahs set in.

No matter how interesting our content or how lively our presentation, the students quickly settle into polite apathy.

Screens wink off.

We can practically SEE the mind-wandering in thought bubbles above our students’ heads.

Is there anything we can do to counteract this seemingly inevitable lethargy?

A research team in Germany set out to investigate this question.

Specifically, they wanted to know if “interaction-enhanced online teaching” could overcome the blahs.

What, you ask, is “interaction-enhanced online teaching,” exactly?

The researchers used several interactive techniques:

Students in this group kept their cameras on,

answered questions at random times during the lecture,

and took a quiz on the material at the conclusion of the lecture.

So, did these changes help?

The Envelopes, Please…

To answer this question, researchers focused much less on students’ learning and much more on the students attention. Specifically, they focused on a sub-component of attention called “alertness.”

This subcomponent means exactly what you think it does: “how much physiological energy is the student experiencing at this moment?” (Teachers typically face two “alertness” problems: too much [students running around with scissors] or too little [students falling asleep, with or without scissors].)

To track alertness, the research team measured all sorts of variables: the students’ heartbeat, the amount of cortisol in their saliva, and their own self-ratings.

So, did always-on cameras and random questions affect these variables? Specifically, did these students show higher alertness levels than others who simply watched the lecture — without the alertness bells-n-whistles?

The short answer is: yup.

Because those variables (heart rate, cortisol) are frankly rather obscure, it probably doesn’t help to rattle off the numbers. (You can check them out in the study itself.)

But the trends are clear: all that alertness enhancing did the trick. Students had more energy during the online presentation.

Classroom Implications

In my view, this study has lots going for it.

First, its recommendations just make sense.

Both daily experience and a decade or so of research shows that students who have to pay attention — they might have to answer a question soon! — remain alert and learn more.

Second, its recommendations are easy to enact. While creating random questions and post-class retrieval practice might take some additional effort, doing so isn’t an enormous task.

The topic of “keeping the camera on” creates controversy in some places — and I can imagine circumstances where it’s not appropriate. But I suspect in most cases, a “camera on” policy is an entirely reasonable baseline.

Third, this “interaction enhancing” improves alertness — and probably helps students learn more.

The study’s authors are quite cautious about this claim; for technical reasons, it’s difficult to measure “learning” in this research paradigm.

But they found that increased alertness correlated with more learning. And: it certainly makes sense that students who pay attention learn more.

TL;DR

If we must teach online, we’ve got a few simple strategies to promote student alertness:

If we ask students to keep their cameras on, answer questions every now and then, and undertake retrieval practices exercises…

…they pay more attention, and probably learn more.

A Technical Footnote about Vocabulary

In the field of psychology, vocabulary can get tricky. We often have several words to describe more-or-less the same psychological concept. (E.g.: “the testing effect” and “retrieval practice.”)

This thing that I’m calling “alertness” is — in fact — often called “alertness”: so I’m not using an incorrect word. But it’s more often called “arousal”; this research team uses that word in their study.

Now, I’m a high-school teacher — so I do not like that word; as the kids say, “it squicks me out.”

So, in this blog post, I’ve preferred the word “alertness.” If you read the study its based on, you’ll see the other a-word.

Gellisch, M., Morosan-Puopolo, G., Wolf, O. T., Moser, D. A., Zaehres, H., & Brand-Saberi, B. (2023). Interactive teaching enhances students’ physiological arousal during online learning. Annals of Anatomy-Anatomischer Anzeiger, 247, 152050.

Erik Jahner, PhD

November-21-2023

Attention Span by Gloria Mark

In our world we now spend over 10 hours a day in front of screens; our mind wanders, we get distracted, and before we know it, we have accomplished next to nothing. So, we subscribe to podcasts, read self-help books (not unlike this one), and search for the hacks that can keep us in a strong state of optimal “focus” or “flow.” We feel that regular focus at work is the goal; we give ourselves very little wiggle room; and we often make digital media the enemy. We need to learn to focus better. Gloria Mark reframes all of this in Attention Span, an intriguing exploration of our attention spans in the digital era.

Mark provides a balanced view on focus and distraction. She challenges common myths throughout. Contrary to popular belief, constantly striving for intense focus while using computers doesn’t always equate to productivity; it’s healthy to have less concentrated moments too. The ideal state of ‘flow’ with technology is beneficial, but it’s not a mandatory goal for every task. Distractions and multitasking aren’t just a result of notifications or lack of discipline; they often arise from various factors beyond our control. Also, we should not underestimate the value of what seems like mindless activities on our devices; these can actually provide necessary mental breaks that boost our overall productivity and add to happiness at work. Understanding these aspects can lead to a more balanced and effective approach to our digital lives.

The book is dominated by her refreshing and unique approach to research and thinking that drive the structure of the book from life to interviews to lab. She starts from a common ground, exploring well-known concepts like ‘flow’ – the deep immersion in an activity, and then evaluates whether this strived-for experience is found in real practice and if it’s all it’s cracked up to be. Is it really the optimal experience? Mark acknowledges that while the concept of flow is intriguing, its occurrence in the workplace is not as frequent as one might think. As with other concepts in the book, rather than discarding this idea, she takes it further, testing and applying it in real-world settings. She adapts similar research methods, poses fresh questions, and rethinks approaches based on her observations. This dynamic between scientific rigor her curiosity and real-world applications creates an engaging narrative that captivates the reader throughout the book.

A core idea in the book is the idea of kinetic attention. The ability to shift strategically between attention types of rote activity, frustrated, focused, and bored is an important attentional skill. And she suggests ways to master it. But one of the first steps is really understanding attention as a dynamic activity that changes across the day, across the week, and other cycles of life. However, keeping this in mind she writes with subtle evaluation of free will throughout the book with a direct intriguing discussion at the end. What does it mean to control attention? Why do some people feel they control their minds and environment while others feel like they are at the whim of notifications and distractions?

There are many fresh and interesting ideas that make you widen your eyes. She teases us with “You may not have thought that playing Candy Crush can actually help us achieve a psychological balance in our workday, but that might soon change” (p. 210). What?! I wanted to read more. And her hope of integrating technology and not demonizing it is really a nice touch of reality. Another intriguing finding from Gloria Mark’s research might make you rethink your beliefs about Facebook: people who spent more time on Facebook tended to report higher levels of happiness at the end of the day. In contrast, the amount of time spent in face-to-face interactions throughout the day didn’t demonstrate a significant correlation with changes in their mood by day’s end.

The final part of the book is packed with practical advice, from setting goals to managing interruptions and incorporating mindfulness practices. These tips are invaluable for anyone looking to improve their attention span in a world rife with digital distractions.

Gloria Mark doesn’t just discuss problems; she provides a roadmap for thriving amidst digital distractions and opportunities, making it a must-read for educators, students, professionals, or anyone seeking to optimize their attention in this screen-filled age. Screens are not going away, and neither are other distractions. Distractions need to be understood not simply avoided.

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts… [Reposted]

Andrew Watson

July-24-2022

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts… [Reposted]

As we prepare for the upcoming school year, how should we think about decorating our classrooms?

Can research give us any pointers?

This story, initially posted in March of 2022, paints a helpfully rich research picture.

Teacher training programs often encourage us to brighten our classrooms with lively, colorful, personal, and uplifting stuff:

Inspirational posters.

Students’ art work.

Anchor charts.

Word walls.

You know the look.

We certainly hope that these decorations invite our students in and invigorate their learning. (We might even have heard that “enriched environments promote learning.”)

At the same time, we might worry that all those decorations could distract our students from important cognitive work.

So, which is it? Do decorations distract or inspire? Do they promote learning or inhibit learning? If only we had research on this question…

Part I: Early Research

But wait: we DO have research on this objection.

Back in 2014, a team led by Dr. Anna Fisher asked if classroom decorations might be “Too Much of a Good Thing.”

They worked with Kindergarten students, and found that — sure enough — students who learned in highly-decorated rooms paid less attention and learned less than others in “sparsely” decorated classroom.

Since then, other researchers have measured students’ performance on specific mental tasks in busy environments, or in plain environments.

The results: the same. A busy visual field reduced working memory and attention scores, compared to plain visual environments.

It seems that we have a “brain-based” answer to our question:

Classroom decorations can indeed be “too much of a good thing.”

Taken too far, they distract students from learning.

Part II: Important Doubts

But wait just one minute…

When I present this research in schools, I find that teachers have a very plausible question.

Sure: those decorations might distract students at first. But, surely the students get used to them.

Decorations might make learning a bit harder at first. But ultimately students WON’T be so distracted, and they WILL feel welcomed, delighted, and inspired.

In this theory, a small short-term problem might well turn into a substantial long-term benefit.

And I have to be honest: that’s a plausible hypothesis.

Given Fisher’s research (and that of other scholars), I think the burden of proof is on people who say that decorations are not distracting. But I don’t have specific research to contradict those objections.

Part III: The Researchers Return

So now maybe you’re thinking: “why don’t researchers study this specific question”?

I’ve got good news: they just did.

In a recently-published study, another research team (including Fisher, and led by Dr. Karrie Godwin, who helped in the 2014 study) wondered if students would get used to the highly decorated classrooms.

Research isn’t research if we don’t use fancy terminology, so they studied “habituation.” As in: did students habituate to the highly decorated classrooms?

In the first half of their study, researchers again worked with Kindergarteners. Students spent five classes studying science topics in plainly decorated classrooms. (The visual material focused only on the topic being presented.)

Then they spent ten classes studying science topics in highly decorated classrooms. (These decorations resembled typical classroom decorations: posters, charts, artwork, etc.)

Unsurprisingly (based on the 2014 study), students were more distractable in the decorated classroom.

But: did they get used to the decorations? Did they become less distractable over time? Did they habituate?

The answer: a little bit.

In other words: students were less distractible than they initially were in the decorated classroom. But they were still more distractible than in the sparsely decorated room.

Even after ten classes, students hadn’t fully habituated.

Part IV: Going Big

This 2-week study with kindergarteners, I think, gives us valuable information.

We might have hoped that students will get used to decorations, and so benefit from their welcoming uplift (but not be harmed by their cognitive cost). So far, this study deflates that hope.

However, we might still hold out a possibility:

If students partially habituate over two weeks, won’t they fully habituate eventually? Won’t the habituation trend continue?

Team Godwin wanted to answer that question too. They ran yet another study in primary school classrooms.

This study had somewhat different parameters (the research nitty-gritty gets quite detailed). But the headline is: this study lasted 15 weeks.

Depending on the school system you’re in, that’s between one-third and one-half of a school year.

How much did the students habituate to the visual distractions?

The answer: not at all.

The distraction rate was the same after fifteen weeks as it was at the beginning of the year.

To my mind, that’s an AMAZING research finding.

Putting It Together

At this point, I think we have a compelling research story.

Despite our training — and, perhaps, despite our love of decoration — we have a substantial body of research suggesting that over-decorated classrooms interfere with learning.

The precise definition of “over-decorated” might take some time to sort out. And, the practical problems of putting up/taking down relevant learning supports deserves thought and sympathetic exploration.

However: we shouldn’t simply hope away the concern that young students can be distracted by the environment.

And we shouldn’t trust that they’ll get used to the busy environment.

Instead, we should deliberately create environments that welcome students, inspire students, and help students concentrate and learn.

Fisher, A. V., Godwin, K. E., & Seltman, H. (2014). Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children: When too much of a good thing may be bad. Psychological science, 25(7), 1362-1370.

Godwin, K. E., Leroux, A. J., Seltman, H., Scupelli, P., & Fisher, A. V. (2022). Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children’s Attention. Cognitive Science, 46(2), e13093.

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts…

Andrew Watson

March-26-2022

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts…

Teacher training programs often encourage us to brighten our classrooms with lively, colorful, personal, and uplifting stuff:

Inspirational posters.

Students’ art work.

Anchor charts.

Word walls.

You know the look.

We certainly hope that these decorations invite our students in and invigorate their learning. (We might even have heard that “enriched environments promote learning.”)

At the same time, we might worry that all those decorations could distract our students from important cognitive work.

So, which is it? Do decorations distract or inspire? Do they promote learning or inhibit learning? If only we had research on this question…

Part I: Early Research

But wait: we DO have research on this objection.

Back in 2014, a team led by Dr. Anna Fisher asked if classroom decorations might be “Too Much of a Good Thing.”

Since then, other researchers have measured students’ performance on specific mental tasks in busy environments, or in plain environments.

The results: the same. A busy visual field reduced working memory and attention scores, compared to plain visual environments.

It seems that we have a “brain-based” answer to our question:

Classroom decorations can indeed be “too much of a good thing.”

Taken too far, they distract students from learning.

Part II: Important Doubts

But wait just one minute…

When I present this research in schools, I find that teachers have a very plausible question.

Sure: those decorations might distract students at first. But, surely the students get used to them.

Decorations might make learning a bit harder at first. But ultimately students WON’T be so distracted, and they WILL feel welcomed, delighted, and inspired.

In this theory, a small short-term problem might well turn into a substantial long-term benefit.

And I have to be honest: that’s a plausible hypothesis.

Part III: The Researchers Return

So now maybe you’re thinking: “why don’t researchers study this specific question”?

I’ve got good news: they just did.

Research isn’t research if we don’t use fancy terminology, so they studied “habituation.” As in: did students habituate to the highly decorated classrooms?

Then they spent ten classes studying science topics in highly decorated classrooms. (These decorations resembled typical classroom decorations: posters, charts, artwork, etc.)

Unsurprisingly (based on the 2014 study), students were more distractable in the decorated classroom.

But: did they get used to the decorations? Did they become less distractable over time? Did they habituate?

The answer: a little bit.

In other words: students were less distractible than they initially were in the decorated classroom. But they were still more distractible than in the sparsely decorated room.

Even after ten classes, students hadn’t fully habituated.

Part IV: Going Big

This 2-week study with kindergarteners, I think, gives us valuable information.

We might have hoped that students will get used to decorations, and so benefit from their welcoming uplift (but not be harmed by their cognitive cost). So far, this study deflates that hope.

However, we might still hold out a possibility:

If students partially habituate over two weeks, won’t they fully habituate eventually? Won’t the habituation trend continue?

Team Godwin wanted to answer that question too. They ran yet another study in primary school classrooms.

This study had somewhat different parameters (the research nitty-gritty gets quite detailed). But the headline is: this study lasted 15 weeks.

Depending on the school system you’re in, that’s between one-third and one-half of a school year.

How much did the students habituate to the visual distractions?

The answer: not at all.

The distraction rate was the same after fifteen weeks as it was at the beginning of the year.

To my mind, that’s an AMAZING research finding.

Putting It Together

At this point, I think we have a compelling research story.

Despite our training — and, perhaps, despite our love of decoration — we have a substantial body of research suggesting that over-decorated classrooms interfere with learning.

However: we shouldn’t simply hope away the concern that young students can be distracted by the environment.

And we shouldn’t trust that they’ll get used to the busy environment.

Instead, we should deliberately create environments that welcome students, inspire students, and help students concentrate and learn.

How to Capture Students’ Attention for Online Readings (tl;dr)

Andrew Watson

June-29-2021

How to Capture Students’ Attention for Online Readings (tl;dr)

When do students focus while reading online?

When do they lose focus and let their minds wander?

Does the length of the passage being read influence the answer to these questions?

Several researchers, including Dr. Noah Forrin, have been exploring this topic, and have some interesting — and helpful! — answers.

Here’s the story:

The Research Setup

Happily, this question can be explored with well-established methods.

Forrin and his colleagues had 80 college students read articles from Wikipedia: topics included “the galaxy,” “Pompeii,” and “Sartre.” The passages were at a 9th grade reading level, and ran about 500 words.

Students read half of these passages in one-sentence chunks (averaging about 12 words). The other half they read in two-to-six sentence chunks (averaging 30 words).

As students read, Forrin interrupted them to ask if they were thinking about the reading, or thinking about any topic other than the Wikipedia passage.

And — here’s a key point — Forrin’s team asked if the students were mind-wandering intentionally or unintentionally. (Yes: in this field, “mind wander” is a verb.)

Why ask that odd question?

If students mind-wander intentionally, they and their teachers can (presumably) have some control over that problem.

However, if mind wandering is unintentional, then we all might struggle to fix this problem.

As the researchers say:

“intentional processes are presumably more likely to be changed by instructions and conscious strategies than are unintentional processes.”

So, what did Team Forrin find?

The Results

Sure enough, the passage length mattered.

More precisely, it mattered for unintentional mind reading (but not intentional). When reading the one-sentence passages, students unintentionally mind-wandered 19% of the time; when reading long passages, they did so 24% of the time.

Forrin’s team speculates that long passages act as a signal that students might find the passage uninteresting. In their grim summary, they write that

students’ increase in mind-wandering while reading educational texts may (1) emerge rapidly, (2) persist over time, (3) harm comprehension, and (4) be related to a decrease in interest.

Ugh.

Next Steps

So, what should we DO with this glum news?

First, as is always the case, I think teachers should use our experience to apply research wisely to our circumstances. For instance, if you don’t have your students do online readings, don’t worry about Forrin’s findings!

If, however, your students spend LOTS of time reading online, then his conclusions merit your attention.

Second, I think these findings add to an increasingly clear research conclusion: online reading doesn’t promote learning as much as old-fashioned ink-on-paper does.

To my mind Dr. Lalo Salmeron’s meta-analysis remains the most useful exploration of this question. He goes through important findings (no, the age of the reader doesn’t matter; no, we aren’t getting better at this skill) and interesting exceptions (prose fiction).

Third, Forrin himself offers a practical suggestion. If we MUST assign online readings, and we CAN break them down into smaller paragraphs, then maybe we should. His research suggests that doing so reduces the amount of unintentional mind-wandering.

Potential result: students concentrate better and learn more.

If he’s right, then Forrin’s research will have been well worth reading — long paragraphs and all.

The 10-Minute Rule: Is The Lecture Dead?

Andrew Watson

April-06-2021

The 10-Minute Rule: Is The Lecture Dead?

The “10-minute rule” offers teachers practical guidance. It typically sounds something like this:

If students aren’t intrinsically interested in material, they can pay attention to it for no more than 10 minutes.

Ergo: teachers should do something different every ten minutes.

Ergo: the lecture is dead.

I first heard the “10-minute rule” at a conference in 2008, and run across it frequently when I work with teachers. They too, it seems, heard it at a conference.

Any rule that gets so much love at teaching conferences must be true, right?

Research-Aligned Teaching Advice

If you’re reading this blog, you want your teaching to have research behind it. So, what exactly is the research behind the “10-minute rule?”

Neil Bradbury is glad you asked. He looked into its history, and came up with some astonishing results: results that would be funny if they weren’t so alarming.

Let’s start with a Johnstone and Percival study from 1976, where two researchers visited 90 lecture classes (!). By comparing observations, they agreed that attention started to wane within the first five minutes (!!), with another decrease in the 10-18 minute range (!!!).

As Bradbury reports, however, this conclusion gets murky quickly:

First: they visited only 13% of those lectures together. In other words: 87% of their data come from one lone observer.

Second: they don’t report how they measured attention, or — for that matter — lapses in attention.

That student looking out the window: is she distracted by a bird, or concentrating on the professor’s complex argument?

That student looking keenly at the slides: is he engrossed in the topic, or trying to remember his lines for tonight’s rehearsal?

Johnstone and Percival have no way to know.

In other words: the “10-minute rule” rests on the hunchy sense of two visitors who were — as far as we can tell — simply relying on their guts. Whatever we call that, we don’t call it “research.”

And, whatever we do with their hunches, we shouldn’t change our teaching because of them.

Measuring Attention

This study highlights a complex problem. Attention, of course, takes place inside our heads. How can we measure it?

One solution: keep track of students’ note taking. Perhaps, students take more notes when they pay attention, and fewer notes when they don’t?

If that hypothesis is true, then students who write less are paying less attention. When we find a steep decline in note taking, we’ve found the moment when attention has dropped off. Sure enough: a 10-minute increment turns out to be crucial.

Alas, as Bradbury points out, this approach also collapses.

First: students take notes relatively consistently throughout a lecture. Their note taking falls off in the final ten minutes, not after the first ten minutes.

Second: in fact, the quantity of note taking results from the professor’s lecture, not from the point in the lecture. When the speaker makes key points, students write more. When the professor is recapping, or simply winding down — as she might do at the end of a lecture — they take fewer notes.

As Bradbury pithily summarizes this approach:

Note taking is not a good proxy for attention whatsoever, and even it if were, it does not support a 10- to 15- minute limit on student engagement.

BOOM.

Let’s Get Physical

If note-taking doesn’t measure attention, perhaps we can use biological measures instead.

Research by Bligh used a pulsemeter to measure students’ alertness. This study found that their pulses dropped roughly 14% over the course of the class.

At last: research confirmation of the “10-minute rule”?

Alas, Bligh’s research found the same results during a discussion class as during a lecture.

We might think that a lower pulse suggests less attention. If it does, then neither class format sustains attention.

Classroom Implications

In brief, the “10-minute rule” isn’t a rule, and doesn’t last ten minutes.

More precisely: we have no research suggesting it’s a rule with a consistent time limit.

Given that truth, what should we teachers do?

First: focus on the obvious truth that people are different.

Older students can (probably) pay attention longer than younger ones.

Hungry students (probably) pay less attention than less-hungry ones. (Except right after lunch.)

Some cultures prioritize focused attention more than others.

Some lecturers know how to hold an audience better than others.

Your approach to teaching should vary based on your specific circumstances, not be dictated by an arbitrary rule (which sounds authoritative but has no research backing.)

For instance: I’m currently teaching two sections of the same class — one in person and the other online. I teach them differently because attention can be more difficult online. (And because the online section meets earlier in the day — a real challenge for high school students.)

Second: study the science of attention.

Surprisingly, attention isn’t one thing.

Instead, attention is a behavioral combination of three distinct mental processes.

The more teachers understand that complex mix, the more successful we can be in creating the behavior by managing the mental processes.

I’ve written a book on this subject: Learning Begins: A Classroom Teacher’s Guide to Working Memory and Attention. (Ryan Reynolds will play me in the movie, I’m sure.)

Or, you can read LOTS of great articles: here’s one place to start.

Whichever approach you take, don’t let implausible absolute rules shape your thinking. Pay attention to your students, and to attention itself. Those two beacons will guide you on your classroom journey.

In the past, I’ve cited Wilson and Korn’s 2007 discussion of this topic. My thanks to Zach Groshell (Twitter handle: @MrZachG) for pointing to Bradbury’s wonderful article.

The Best Length of Time for a Class [Repost]

Andrew Watson

August-25-2020

The Best Length of Time for a Class [Repost]

Quite consistently, this post has been among the most searched for and most popular on the blog.

Teachers and administrators REALLY want to know: What is the optimal amount of time for our students to meet? What’s the very best schedule?

Here’s the best answer I have:

I met yesterday with several thoughtful teachers who had resonant questions about education research.

How do we balance factual learning and deep thinking?

What’s “the right amount of stress” during a test?

How can we promote collaboration while honoring individual differences?

And:

What’s the optimal class length?

This question comes up often. Should we have lots of short classes, so every subject meets every day? Should we have a few longer classes, so that we can dig deeply into a particular topic without interruption?

Debates sometimes fall along disciplinary lines. Foreign language and math teachers often want frequent class meetings; English and History teachers typically like bigger chunks of time for discussions.

Science teachers just gotta have 80 minutes to run a lab well.

But: what does research show?

Class Length: What Research Tells Us

As far as I know, we just don’t have a clear answer to that question.

Over at the Education Endowment Fund, for example, they’ve investigated the benefits of block scheduling: that is, a few long periods rather than several short ones.

The finding: we can’t really say. Or, to quote EEF: “There is no consistent pattern in the evidence.”

More precisely:

The evidence suggests that how teachers use the time they are allocated is more important than the length of lesson or the schedule of lessons, and hence that the introduction of block scheduling is unlikely to raise attainment by itself.

By implication, a change away from block scheduling shouldn’t raise attainment either.

The point is not how long we teach but how well we teach with the time we’ve got.

For this reason, I often counsel schools and teachers: before you change your schedule, study human attention systems.

Once teachers know how attention works — and, it’s A LOT more complicated that we might have thought — we’ll be much better at helping students learn. (If you have the chance to attend a Learning and the Brain session about attention: RUN, don’t walk.)

Class Length: What Research Can’t Tell Us

Research doesn’t answer this question, I think, because it can’t. There’s no one correct answer.

If you teach 2nd graders or 7th graders or 11th graders, you’ll probably find that different lengths of time work better.

If you teach in cultures that inculcate patience and concentration, longer classes will work better than in cultures with a more get-up-and-go kind of pace.

The number of students in the class might matter.

The experience of the teacher almost certainly matters.

When your school starts investigating schedules, therefore, I suggest you start with these essentials:

First: study human attention.

Second: don’t design “the optimal schedule.” Design the optimal schedule for your school and your students. It might not work at anyone else’s school, but it doesn’t need to.

A schedule that works for you and your students is the closest to optimal that you can get.

Older posts

The Setup

The Payoff

Practical Implications

Invisible Peer Pressure

Things Get Weird

Classroom Implications

Yes, Yes: Caveats

TL;DR

Defeating the Blahs

The Envelopes, Please…

Classroom Implications

TL;DR

A Technical Footnote about Vocabulary

Part I: Early Research

Part II: Important Doubts

Part III: The Researchers Return

Part IV: Going Big

Putting It Together

Part I: Early Research

Part II: Important Doubts

Part III: The Researchers Return

Part IV: Going Big

Putting It Together

The Research Setup

The Results

Next Steps

Research-Aligned Teaching Advice

Measuring Attention

Let’s Get Physical

Classroom Implications

Class Length: What Research Tells Us

Class Length: What Research Can’t Tell Us

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