Month: November 2017

 

So Don’t even try – https://hbr.org/2010/12/you-cant-multi-task-so-stop-tr

You’re basically short-circuiting your brain’s ability to focus and attend to either (or any) of the tasks you are attempting to do simultaneously (but not) – https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201103/technology-myth-multitasking

You’re actually engaged in ‘serial tasking’

There are designated areas of the brain that do specific things. And, sometimes you can seemingly do two things at once (like walk and talk or chew gum), but that does not translate into multi-tasking, according to neuroscientists – https://laurenpietila.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/multitasking-is-not-possible-according-to-neuroscience-attention-part-3/

And in trying to “multi-task” we are likely doing physical damage to ourselves – https://www.truthdig.com/articles/multitasking-its-dangerous-and-it-doesnt-really-exist/

I can’t believe I’m saying this: before you were born there was a great deal of value placed on doing one thing at a time and doing it to the best of your ability. When I was in my 20’s, I fell prey to the myth of believing that I could do two (or even three) things at once: I felt powerful, in control and like I had conquered the time-space continuum. I also didn’t learn to establish reasonable boundaries for myself or conserve my energy, so by the time I was 40, I was exhausted and realized the whole notion of do multiple things well at the same time was all an illusion.

There’s a better chance that one could live in two separate dimensions at the same time than do two things at the same time in one dimension. Chew on that for a moment.

Moral of this story: heed the example of your predecessors’ failures (as well as their successes), understand the scientific explanations of how the brain works/processes information, and make good choices so that you don’t burn out in the future (and pass this wisdom on to your students, please). Do one thing at a time, and do it well. Then the dopamine rush will carry you on to the next task, and the next, and the next.

Live long and prosper, my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other References  – from Cognitive Processes Course @ VT

Junco, R. (2012). In-class multitasking and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2236-2243. VText*

Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24-31.

Carrier, L. M., Rosen, L. D., Cheever, N. A., & Lim, A. F. (2015). Causes, effects, and practicalities of everyday multitasking. Developmental Review, 35, 64-78. VText*

*you will need to be logged in to the VT Network in order to access these documents via the link provided.

I am a teaching assistant for a professor that travels frequently. This has proven to have both pros and cons; this creates much more work than the average TA, however I have had the opportunity to hop right into teaching at the collegiate level. As I have begun to regularly sub for the professor, there have been challenges along the way. Especially as the students transition from one teaching style to the next, they tend to frequently have a “deer in headlights” look, especially when discussion is expected or questions are posed. Recently, there was such a lack of response when I asked the group as a whole if they understood the material that I literally had to say, “Are we shaking our heads yes or no”? In this course, students are able to bring their laptops and phones to class. Sometimes it seems as though students are much more engaged in what is being displayed on their laptops versus what is taking place in the classroom. The Leave Your Laptops at the Door to My Classroom article really resonated with me. Through my undergraduate career, I rarely brought my laptop to class because of how I knew I would be distracted by it.

I do see the argument that typing notes on laptops can be done much more quickly than taking notes by hand and can also be much more legible for both the student taking them and for others. This also serves as an easy way to consolidate notes, update them, and save them for later. Personally, I am an advocate for taking notes by hand, however I do not think it is my place to “choose” that for students as everyone learns differently. My stance at this point in time is that whatever route is chosen, it is essential that expectations be communicated the first day of class.

 

The Smarter Than You Think reading by Clive Thompson adds to this conversation by shining light on the fact that we don’t have to rely solely on humans or technology; there can be a healthy combination of both. In fact, the integration of the two is often the most beneficial option. Therefore, maybe allowing students to use their computers and phones to perform certain tasks, but asking them to put them away otherwise could be a way to accomplish this. This article brought up a good point that being aware of how technology affects our daily lives (sometimes inhibiting us) is key. As instructors, we can help students to reflect on this concept and be more mindful about technology being a distraction/how technology is a distraction from a personal standpoint. When I peer reviewed Debjit’s course syllabus in class, his statement about the usage of technology in the classroom impressed me. It was like a friendly forewarning about how technology can serve as both a beneficial tool in the classroom or a distraction. He stressed that it was important for students to be able to recognize the role it played for them personally, putting the responsibility on the students, but still allowing freedom of choice.

 

 

Photos:

https://www.metalogix.com/sites/default/files/styles/blog_detail_image/public/deer%20in%20headlights.png?itok=JtAu1D9o

https://11tx7b411ycc3zja3v2vhqz9-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/VennDiagram. png

http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/assets/posts/2016-06-16-more-human-humans/human-machine2.png

On 1964 the word “multitask” was used by the first time to describe a new computer system. The name was given to the several capabilities of the system. Over the time, humans have tried to adopt this system into their daily life tasks often to improve productivity.

However, as humans we have to recognize that the brain works differently than a machine does. There are multiple scientific studies that demonstrate that performing more than one task at the time result in mistakes, distractions and wasting time. In t1990s, Dr. Rogers and collaborators found that in the moment that people had to switch between two tasks they increase the time of its performance. On the contrary, focusing in one thing “paying attention” is more efficient.

The business insider interviewed the CEO of Amazon “Jeff Bezos” to shared the key of his success.

He recognizes that it is necessary to avoid multitask and instead focus on your talents.

Focus steps are more efficient and improve productivity successful. Technology can help improving our tasks, but  it is just a tool. Instead, we should focus on practices to use wisely our time, talents and paying attention in order to be more productive and achieve success.

 

 

 

 

This week, reviewing the readings about attention and multitasking, gave me a chance to reflect on my personal experiences with multitasking. I used to be proud of being a multitask-er. In undergrad and first few semesters of my graduate degree, in an attempt to be more “efficient” (which was my code for more time to play video games), I would browse email while listening to news articles via text-to-speech, answer texts while reading books or journal articles, and talk on the phone while cooking or doing chores.  Over time, I began to notice a significant drop in productivity as I would have a hard time focusing on the task at hand. I went from consuming books on a regular, to having trouble finishing a 2-3 page news article. I realized that efficiency was affecting quality of my work. This house of cards came crashing down in the Spring of 2015, when I went on academic probation for not maintaining a satisfactory GPA. Multi-tasking was not the only issue in my life that led to probation, but it played a part.

Lessons learned, drastic changes made.

This was the time I started reading about the research looking into multitasking and concluding that multitasking is actually multi-task-switching, but at the cost of loss in attention spans. I decided to start prioritizing and focusing on one thing at a time rather than multiple things at once. By doing this, and taking regular breaks during the course of the day to calm my obsessive mind, I noticed that I was actually getting more done. Slowing down what you do can help you get more done. This was my ah-ha moment when I read Technology: Myth of Multitasking.

Needless to say, I am no longer (proud of being) a multitask-er.

Bring Laptops to the class has been controversial since laptops became public affordable. In engineering classes, it becomes common that laptops are needed to help the students to solve problems. Laptops come a part of human’s “extended” brain, especially in the computer-aided design field. Professors start teaching students computer tricks and think these tricks are essential for future engineers. There are other voices believing that laptops in class will do worse than better. They draw the students’ attention away from the lectures. One example from Darren Rosenblum (Leave Your Laptops at the Door to My Classroom) shows that forbidding laptops in class improved the students’ engagement.

With new technologies, people tend to seek more efficient ways of doing things. Research papers follow a certain structure so that readers can grasp the information quickly. Authors put graphic abstracts at the beginning of papers. We read blogs on our way to the offices or homes. Still, the producing of blogs is always faster than our capacity of reading. It seems the time that we can spend on the internet is almost infinite. That fact makes people panic. It makes some people panic because they want to grab some time and it seems the queue ahead of them is just endless.

But, why should they wait? They can compete and win the time back.

There are certain things in this world cannot be accelerated, because time, itself, is an important property of those things. One most obvious example is music. You do not fast forward a piece of music because it will just destroy the piece.

I don’t see people clicking on their facebook or twitter in a movie theater, because they spent all their attention on watching the movies. I realized that watching movies is just as tiring as reading books. But they still concentrate, for that one and a half hours. A documentary is as informative as a college-level class, and there are a group of people spend time watching it. I foresee that some excellent educators are also good performers. An eye-catching class can be broadcasted as a movie. And the outsiders exist. They are immune to the class. We should acknowledge the existence of those students. Just like each movie has a target group of audiences.

There was a time, many many years ago, when I knew the phone numbers of my immediate family and my best friends…those days are pretty much over. Today, I often have to check my “smart” phone’s directory, or just do so to avoid typing the number (for the few cases that I actually know it). The same goes with birthdays, I was very good at knowing my relatives and good friends, of course I still know those that I memorized a while ago. But in the case of my new friends, I don’t know. I have these dates written in a wall calendar, YES I USE ONE OF THOSE, and of course Facebook and Outlook would send me reminders.

Clive Thompson mentions in his book “Smarter Than You Think…How technology is changing our minds for better”, among other interesting points, technology (new digital tools) has/have enable humans to expand their memory. Yes, this is true from the perspective of external memory and all the data that can be stored, and information that we can get access to. But hasn’t this resulted in a shrinkage of our internal memory? Like Mr. Thompson, I don’t believe neuroscience is ready to analyze what is happening to our brains as a result of continuous interaction with technological devices. Or maybe now it is, don’t really know. The point I want to make is: we have definitely change our habits. The need that we had before to memorize appears to no longer be there. Yet in the event of an emergency, and the fatal circumstance of no “smart” phone to check, the perspective would be different. Seems like now we focus more on short term memory, and rely on the technology surrounding us to take charge of the long term memory.

As in most cases, the use of advanced technology in classrooms environments has pros and cons. I have seen situations like those expresed by Darren Rosenblum in “Leave your laptops at the Door to My Classroom“, where students would focus in their computers or cellphones, rather than the class activities. One would think that at graduate level classes this would not be a problem, because “graduate students are more mature than undergraduate students, and they really want to be there” (in quotation marks because I am sure someone else has already said this). But that is not the reality, I have sit in several graduate courses where this happens. So it is not a matter of education level….

I CONFESS: I HAVE DONE IT… I think it is a total disrespect to the professor and classmates (my apologies for past and future events). Yet it is not the laptop’s or phone’s fault, it is the individual. I could easily get distracted with a piece of paper and pen, making a drawing (or attempting to do so) or writing my plan for the next day, or whatever. So the problem is not the how? or the what? but the why? Why do I check my phone while in class? or anything else for that matter? or at almost any moment? The answer should be pretty obvious, lack of concentration, mindfulness, not being able to focus in the moment. For more on this, I invite you to read Sharon Salzberg’s “Three Simple Ways to Pay Attention”, CONCENTRATION, MINDFULNESS and COMPASSION. Perhaps it is the teacher’s fault too (respectful comment, not really applicable to GEDI classes), because sometimes class topics are boring or the class is boring even if the topic is interesting. I am planning to ask students to use their cellphones/laptops in my classes, for educational purposes, the how is another topic.

So, to finish this post before I lose you, and your interest goes somewhere else, let me finish with the following: it is up to you how to embrace technology in your everyday life (not that you needed to read it, but sometimes a reminder that you are owner of your decisions is not bad). If you want to keep checking your phone every five minutes, do it, but better not in class. If you want to continue taking notes in paper, do it. If you like taking notes in a laptop/tablet, keep doing it. If you like to write the birthdays (date) of your relatives and friends in a wall calendar (or any other calendar), YOU ARE AN AWESOME PERSON, keep doing it. If not, YOU ARE AWESOME TOO, but consider doing it :). What matters is how and when you use the technology available for you. “The Myth of the Disconnected Life”, a nice article on the how/when by Jason Farman.

Almost forgot, I purposely wrote “smart” phone, because we are the smart ones, not the phone… sometimes we tend to forget that.

Let’s keep learning. Let’s keep educating. Let’s keep moving forward. Let’s keep asking WHY. Let’s continue to be more mindful. Let’s forget about A, B, C, D, E and F (the grades, not the letters) … easier said than done. Let’s focus on making sure to help each other out. Let’s create successful teams. Let’s remember that we are unique and have differences, but we have at least one common element among us, perhaps the most important one: we are HUMANS (ambigous term nowadays?). Let’s be smarter than the “smart” technology we have created, let’s use it appropriately…. (I think this paragraph has become a good “super brief” executive summary of my GEDI journey and blog adventure).

Carlos F. Mantilla P.

In this modern world, we are expected to be a multi-task person to accomplish different goals efficiently. Take myself as an example, being an PhD student in engineering, I’m expected to supervise three master plus one visiting PhD students, act as a research assistant for two to three research projects annually, write at least three manuscripts per year, and be a reviewer for several journals and conferences. That is only my academic part of PhD life, quite occupied yet full and enjoyable to me. However, being multi-task does not mean you should complete all things at once (e.g. one day), rather at an extended time period (e.g. one semester). You only have one pair of hands, and focusing on too many tasks simultaneously will lead to an overload on your brain. In the end, you probably could fail in all tasks. The wise choice should be focusing on each task one at a time and finishing them successively. For me, I tend to evaluate my current mood and energy and choose a suitable task to start with.

However, things are always easy said than done, especially in a world full of technologies. Advancement of technologies do enhance our efficiency greatly via, as Clive puts it, “infinite memory” in this digital era. Still, we are constantly exposed to excessive data flow and may get lost in between. For example, searching for a suitable topic for scholarly essay can end up as one hour chatting with friends on social media. Even for myself, I may check emails or twitter periodically when confronting a difficult task like writing a manuscript. Distraction is only one side of the evil, and I should say plagiarism has never been so easy with the Internet as well. Searching a similar topic or answer can be completed within a couple of clicks, and nobody is watching when you do “copy and paste”. Clive brings about this challenge on when should we not to use the “digital thinking tools” and just rely on traditional ways of thinking and technologies (e.g. books and paper). I do not have direct answer at this moment, but I believe we should start practicing our next generation to be able to focus on one particular task.

Personally, I benefit a lot from my parents. When I was in elementary school, my mom always asked me to finish all homework before turning on the TV, and my father tended to jog with me in the morning before one day began during summer vacation. I was also told to concentrate on eating the food instead of talking or watching TV to avoid biting my tongue or dropping the food on the table/ground. Gradually, I get better towards different interference when doing tedious work and try to be more efficient. Living in this digital era, we definitely cannot abandon using advanced technologies, and thus we need to evolve our ways when taking best advantage of them. It takes time to master the trick to efficiently harness the power of technologies to deal with a specific task, and success always comes from more practice.

One of the readings this week, Leave Your Laptops at the Door to My Classroom, reminds one of my experience when I was an undergraduate student. I slept over a little bit for my class that day, so I left my apartment in rush. After my class in the morning, I realized that I forgot to bring my Iphone with me. I was a little bit anxious because I was not sure if someone sent me messages or called me. However, I had classes all day that day and wasn’t able to get my phone in the middle of the day. Then I had a one day’s experience to study without my phone. Surprisingly, I found myself more focused during the class and more efficient doing homework. Usually, I will check my phone when it notices me the emails, messages and all kinds of notifications. But since my phone was not with me anyway, I was able to 100% focus on learning.

 

Shortly after that, I heard stories that some students in my department don’t bring any electric devices everyday intently because they don’t want to be distracted by phones and laptops when they’re in the classroom and studying. From my personal experience, this practice is really a good way to help keep the students with instructors and get them involved in the class. However, there is a dilemma by doing so especially for class nowadays. A big issue here is computer/laptop has become a tool for teaching. For example, in our GEDI class, we pretty much use laptop every time we meet for group discussion and other practices. Some other classes rely even more heavily on laptops. But when instructors allow laptops in their classrooms, it’s really hard avoid distraction from it. Reading an email in the inbox probably only take one minute, but students can miss an important concept and get lost the rest of the class. Also, many students take notes on laptops nowadays because it’s just more convenient and easier.

 

So how to balance it out? I had a professor let the students use their laptops only when they are asked to, but close the laptop lid the rest of the class. Some professors also give students couple minutes during the class to check their phones and relax a little bit. These are all practice from professors to help students focus more on the class. But more importantly, the students should be aware of the distraction from electric devices and be willing to avoid that.

In the past, I have a limited knowledge of the issues and causes of diversity, not to mention how to contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion. That is probably because I am from a culture that is not as diversified as the US in aspects such as race, culture, and religion. Still, there were many types of […]