Multitasking in the Classroom

As I read this week's chapter I thought about attention and multitasking. I thought about how difficult I find concentration if there is a lot going on around me. For example, I do not like to do any school work in a coffee shop because I get too distracted. Also, when reading, even for pleasure, I like silence. I find talking or music distracting and I feel that it takes away from what I am trying to do. Then I think about myself as both a student and a teacher. During my undergraduate years I found myself trying to figure out the best note taking strategy during lecture. In some classes this was easy because they teacher just said what was on the powerpoint plus possibly a little example, and I found this easy to write down and comprehend. In other classes, the teacher would use a PowerPoint but not say one word of what was on it, and I found that I struggled to figure out what to write down. I struggled firstly, because I did not know what was more important to remember for studying later, and secondly because I would forget what the teacher would say and when I looked back up at the PowerPoint there were no words to jog my memory of what was just said. Thinking about how difficult this was as a college student, who was in school because I wanted to learn, not because someone was making me go to school, I can now see why some students may be reluctant to take notes. They don't know what to write down. They don't know what is important. They don't know what to pay attention to, and their attention is usually divided between the teacher and other students in the classroom. I just wonder how we can fix this multitasking that goes on in the classroom? Some multitasking is inevitable, so what is the best way to deal with it?