Peps Mccrea researchED Maths and Science

TL;DR

Teachers must focus on managing students' thinking and attention in order to enhance learning outcomes.

Transcript

in terms of teaching your job is to access and harness and use their working memory to build their long-term memory and so your job as teachers really and we caught won't working memory but can easily call it thinking your job as teachers or our job as teachers if we're looking at teaching through memory perspective or memory lens it's to manage th... Read More

Key Insights

• 🤔 Teachers play a crucial role in managing students' thinking and attention to foster effective learning.
• 🧑‍🎓 Accessing and utilizing students' working memory is essential for building their long-term memory.
• 🤔 Attention is the gatekeeper of thinking, and directing attention towards the right information is vital for learning.
• 💁 Teachers should eliminate unnecessary information that can compete for students' attention.
• 🧑‍🎓 Distractions in the social environment and within the subject should be minimized to optimize students' focus.
• 👈 Techniques like changing contrast, pointing, and fostering awareness of attention can effectively direct students' focus.
• 🧑‍🎓 Students should also be taught to become better at managing their own attention.

Questions & Answers

Q: How can teachers manage students' thinking in the classroom?

Teachers can serve as role models by demonstrating how thinking works and providing clear guidance on how to harness thinking. While there is limited research in this area, understanding the gatekeeper of thinking, which is attention, can be impactful.

Q: Why is attention important in the classroom?

Attention determines what students think about, which directly affects their ability to learn. If students do not pay attention to the right things, they cannot think about them and learn effectively. Thus, managing attention is crucial for teachers.

Q: How can teachers manage attention in the classroom?

There are three strategies for managing attention. Firstly, teachers should reduce the amount of unnecessary information in the classroom that may compete for students' attention. This includes removing distracting posters and displays. Secondly, teachers should eliminate distractions in the social environment, such as interruptions from outside individuals. Lastly, teachers should minimize distractions within the subject or content, such as irrelevant clipart in slides or tasks that divert students' focus.

Q: What are some methods to direct students' attention?

Teachers can use various techniques to direct attention, such as changing contrast to make relevant information stand out, physically pointing or looking at something, and teaching students to improve their own attention management through strategies like noticing and identifying important features.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Teachers should aim to access and utilize students' working memory to build their long-term memory and improve learning.

• Managing thinking in teaching involves managing how students think and what they think about during lessons.

• Attention is a crucial factor in learning, and teachers can employ strategies to direct and orient students' attention towards the right information.