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    The New Education - Fighting Technology (and Boredom) for the Attention of Students
    The New Education - Fighting Technology (and Boredom) for the Attention of Students
    The New Education - Fighting Technology (and Boredom) for the Attention of Students
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    The New Education - Fighting Technology (and Boredom) for the Attention of Students

    By PFK

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    About this ebook

    How often do you see students sitting on their phones, continuously scrolling, looking straight into their laps without a care in the world for what you are trying to teach them? How often do your students neglect doing their homework, presumably in favor of pursuing leisure activities of their choice? How often, after you feel you've prepared your students as best as you can, are you underwhelmed by the test scores come grading time? For these questions, the answer is probably - more often than you'd wish.

    The introduction of digital technology to the classroom has brought just as many (possibly more) challenges as benefits to secondary education. The primary purpose of the educator is no longer to foster effective learning environments and to convey information to students, as has historically been the case, but rather to compete with external stimuli for the attention of these students. In this book, I explore tactics centered around keeping students engaged, covering topics such as discipline, assessments, lesson structure, homework, and technology's role in the classroom. 

    Education is changing. Will your teaching methods change too?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPFK
    Release dateMay 30, 2024
    ISBN9798227580627
    The New Education - Fighting Technology (and Boredom) for the Attention of Students

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      The New Education - Fighting Technology (and Boredom) for the Attention of Students - PFK

      Preface

      THIS BOOK PROVIDES a concise outlook of my views concerning teacher expectations and adequate instruction of students. Although I’d like to think that my views towards teaching are in line with the most effective methods of educating, it would be foolish of me to assert that the techniques outlined henceforth are the only methods. If I had one piece of advice for teachers, it would be this - make sure you foster a learning environment in which you can best help your students become better people and more conscious academics. This will look different for everyone. I’ve had great teachers over the years with very different teaching styles. I don’t expect a single person to read this book and adopt the entirety of it into their educational canon. But, I do hope that all readers, whether they be students, parents, teachers, administrators, professors of higher learning, or simply concerned citizens, can take something useful from these pages. If this is the case, then the effort put forth in shaping this book has been worth it.

      Four remarks before we begin. 1) The information presented in this book is a mix of subjective (my own opinion) and is based on relevant literature. It will be clear whether an opinion is of my own accord or derived from professional analysis through the use of in-text citations. 2) This book is primarily intended for the late-intermediate and secondary levels of education. 3) This book was written in conjunction with my studies in history and education at the undergraduate level. I do not possess any advanced degrees nor do I have any formal experience teaching in a classroom. My opinions are grounded in my experience as a student and in conversations with educators across various levels of the profession. 4) I directly address teachers and their methods in this book. Because of the lens through which I levy my critiques/suggestions, I don’t want the reader to be misled into thinking that teachers are the only, or even the primary, culprits of recent academic shortcomings. They aren’t. But in my estimation, teachers are the ones best positioned to make a concerted effort towards improving student achievements, and as such, I’ve chosen to aim my assertions in their direction.

      Nothing irks me more than a long preface/introduction, so with that being said, let us get started.

      Chapter One - The Changing Role of the Educator

      SINCE THE TURN OF THE century, the American education system has been the recipient of frequent criticism, and for good reason - education levels among America’s youth are at historic lows. The Nation’s Report Card, a well-respected analysis of academic achievement by grade level in the United States, put forth by the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), confirms this reality. In their 2022 School Survey, NAEP found that 25% of 4th graders did not meet the ‘basic’ mathematical benchmarks and 37% fell short in reading (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2022). By 8th grade, math rose to 38% and reading fell back to 30% (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2022).

      Recently,  COVID has served as the scapegoat for academic achievement shortcomings (Doan-Nguyen, 2023). Others levy blame elsewhere. The government doesn’t invest enough in education; students and teachers suffer from not having enough resources to go around (Partelow et al., 2018). Underlying mental health issues are affecting student motivation and driving down performance (Lowe, 2024). Cell phones are too large of a distraction for students and they struggle to manage their usage (Snelling, 2024). Teachers’ salaries are so low teachers have to pay for classroom supplies; coupled with the financial strain deriving from lack of compensation, and there are significant shortages within the labor pool, leading to unacceptable student-teach ratios (Darling-Hammond, 2023).

      I disagree with all of these assertions. All, especially COVID, certainly exacerbated the issues already plaguing the education system, but are by no means the primary culprits. Recent declines in student performance are indicative of a much larger, much nastier problem facing education today - Children and teens are too frequently distracted at school.

      Researchers at Common Sense Media put together an excellent study concerning cell phone usage in the classroom. They found that 97% of students who own a phone use it for an average of 43 minutes per day while at school (Radesky et al., 2023, p. 5). Phrased differently, the researchers found that nearly all (97% of) students spent over 10% of their time at school (43 minutes out of 420 minutes) on their phones. Such a statistic is alarming and suggests that students are mentally absent from the classroom for just under a whole class period per day. As for what students are doing on their phones, social media is the most prevalent distraction. TikTok was used by 50% of our participants, for a median of one hour and 52 minutes per day (p. 7). If we are to assume the average class period is about an hour long, students who use TikTok are on their phones for two whole periods of the day. Across the year, these students are missing two subjects worth of instruction so they can scroll through their TikTok accounts (and this is just one social media platform). To put the nail in the proverbial coffin, smartphone use has already been found to hurt classroom performance (Sunday, Adesope, & Maarhuis, 2021).

      Is it any wonder test scores are faltering?

      The prevalence of multitasking, even outside of the classroom, further undermines learning. Heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory (Ophir et al., 2009, p. 15,585). 58% of 7th through 12th graders report multitasking with another media most/some of the time while reading, and 64% report doing multiple things on the computer most/some of the time (Foehr, 2006, p. 8). When combined, these findings translate seamlessly into the classroom and suggest that the more multitasking a student performs outside of the classroom, the less capable they will be of keeping their undivided attention on the lessons while inside the classroom. Keep in mind the data presented is from 15 years ago - tech usage in children and teens has gotten worse since then.

      More recent studies have come to similar conclusions. Students who use laptops engage in more multitasking and score lower on memory assessments (Jamet et al., 2020); multi-tasking is detrimental to reading comprehension (Clinton-Linsell, 2021); multitasking has a negative relationship with GPA in online and face-to-face learning (Alghamdi

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