The More I Learn, the More I Have to Learn by Diane Barrie
Posted by dbarrie on October 27, 2009
I am sitting in a workshop with Will Richardson, and I am TOTALLY multi-tasking, but I think it’s o.k.! In fact, Will has encouraged it. We are learning about social media networks and personalized, passion-based learning. Isn’t that a great term – passion-based learning? Anyway, while we’re listening to Will talk, he’s showing us sites on the screen, we’re exploring a variety of links on our own computers, and he’s Skyped in another colleague from Saskatchewan who, among many other things, teaches an online social media class. While all of this is going on, Will set up a chat room for us to talk using Chatterous. My head is about to explode! This is how our students think and learn and live. This is what NCTE is saying about 21st century literacy (check out the fourth bullet point). What do you think about the multi-tasking nature of today’s learner? Is it outside your comfort zone? How will you (or do you) push yourself outside your own comfort zone?
Vicki Steinberg said
Didn’t I just read a long article somewhere (The New Yorker, maybe) which reported research had found that multi-tasking people actually were worse at each task than those of us who tackle one task at a time? And that each task took the multi-tasker longer to do?
dbarrie said
I am rather sure I heard something like that, too, but I can’t quote the source. The reality is that this is how children operate. Do we embrace it and help them manage “multiple streams of simultaneous information” as NCTE says, or push back?
Brenda said
I wonder about the idea of multitasking at the computer. When I used to have time, I would sit and do a one task on the computer (writing a unit of study, organizing lessons, creating lessons) BUT I would also have a screen open that would let me know if I got an e-mail message and I would reply to that. Kind of working both platforms. Sometimes they would cross and I would ask for help with the “lessons” from the person I was e-mailing. I used to think student “texting” had nothing to do with what I was teaching or they were supposed to be learning, until I found myself doing more than one thing at a time. I also heard Randy Bomer and one of his students discuss how the texting actually tied in with the learning and how it helped her writing.
andrea fishman said
This fascinates and distresses me. I can multitask. I’m actually pretty good at it. But I know that when I multitask, I can’t think deeply about anything I’m doing. It’s like a constant tennis match. Hit each ball in turn. Then hit each ball again. Keep it in play. Don’t stop to think about any shot. That will cause you to miss the next one and then, oh my! Oh, what? I miss one. Which means I’m not good enough at the game. Have to try harder.
But why?! Who said this is the game I should be playing? What happened to being reflective? What happened to being with the person you’re with when you’re with them? Or thinking through an idea before reacting to it? Reading an email twice, making sure it says what I mean before I put back in someone else’s court.
I know this is how our students live. And given the current research on adolescent brain development, this is forging different kinds of connections, laying down different patterns in their brains than we have in ours. Those patterns will likely help them multitask more and better in the future, which will have its upside.
But what else will those connections and patterns do? What connections and patterns won’t be made? What about the ones that allow us to sustain our attention over time? To concentrate on a single idea – or person or conversation – long enough to connect with them, get to know them?
I worry about this a lot.
Andy
bseher said
This past summer I read a few articles on multitasking which I believe in this day and age has progressed to hypertasking. My students’ comprehension is poor because they are doing too much when they are reading–at home. When at school, they can barely sit still to read because in that environment they are forced to unitask. That’s a new word I came across this summer–one that is my new buzzword. Research shows that we’re not doing well at anything once you start pushing past two tasks at a time. I really feel there’s a connection to hypertasking and being able to flip the switch to a unitasking task when it comes to reading comprehension.