Students are Distracted…What can we do about it?

What is Distraction ???

Distraction can be defined as – to draw the attention of (a person) away from something. Distractions come from both external sources, and internal sources

We have observed that social media and devices can be a cause to distract the students in classrooms

Social media is “the relationships that exist between network of people” .
In the last ten years, the online world has changed.
Digital classroom tools like computers, tablets and smartphones offer exciting opportunities to deepen learning through creativity, collaboration and connection, but those very devices can also be distracting to students.

Because students are spending too much time on Facebook and other social media sites and so they do not give enough time to study.

Frequency of Student Device Use in Class for Non-Class Purposes, Per Day

Never	8%
1-3 times	35%
4-10 times	27%
11-30 times	16%
More than 30 times	15%

When asked to students, why they were using their devices in class, the top answer was texting (86 percent), followed by checking the time (79 percent). e-mail (68 percent), social networking (66 percent), web surfing (38 percent) and games (8 percent).

What can teachers do about it?

It is a question of academic management, teachers should have liberty to adopt flexibility in teaching curriculum, which is difficult in a centralized education system.
How one can think of such liberty when examination and evaluation to be run together for 200-250 colleges? Teachers have become interpreters of the text books in line with question paper trends. Student feels wastage of time and energy when taught by an field experienced person. If engineering education has to survive with class, complete responsibility of setting up syllabus (chapter content), question paper and evaluation should lie with the teacher teaching for the whole semester. If you doubt teachers, whole education system looses it’s efficacy, becomes a certificate producing agency. Decency of the education lies with honest relationships between student and teacher. You would generate few Duryodhanas, but many Arjunas on the surface too. We are producing the soldiers of mahabharatas only at present.

Said by
“Prof.P.K.Majumdar”

How can teachers involve students more in the lectures?

Captivate students from the beginning:

The idea is to start each lesson with something short and interesting that is going to settle the students and engage them with the lesson.

Adopt student centered learning strategies:

Student-centered learning is all about placing the student at the centre of the teaching process. It is making students an active and a responsible contributor in their own learning. Use educational videos and images for the visual learners. Bringing in models and artefacts for the kinesthetic learners. Have group sessions where the students have to move around the room and don’t remain static for the bodily-kinesthetic learners. Thinking about students learning needs helps us to think more about our teaching style.

Question time:

Involving students through questioning helps to maintain their attention, which is vital when information is complex and lectures are long.

What innovative techniques can be implemented in the classroom to make the lectures more engaging?

Technology:

We are lucky to be lecturing at a time when there are so many technological resources available to us, which we can use to improve and enhance the learning experience for our students. Educational videos, especially as there is such a great selection available now, which are both engaging and informative.

Organization is everything! :

Some subject content might be more suitable to a Power-Point presentation than others. Preparing a lecture in advance also allows you time to research valuable resources, such as educational videos, YouTube clips, academic articles etc …

Be animated :

Try to vary the intonation (pitch and tone) of your voice. It is easy when lecturing to present the information to a few students, in order to engage all students it is vital to maintain eye contact with the whole room and not just a few.

Make the lecture interactive :

An interactive lecture is one that includes and encourages student participation. Using techniques that encourage all students to contribute, helps to promote student retention and learning of the content presented during lecture.

What are trigger points of students of the new generation? The new generation means young children born after year 2000 (these are known as Generation Z)

They do not believe any one, neither rely, experiments with themselves, more access to knowledge, less interested in intricacy, do only things which pays, optimal gains with more enjoyment.

We collect some feedback from Teachers about Distraction:

• Make Student-Parent relationship between teachers and students.
• Reduce lecture and practical time.
• Engineering admission criteria must be improve to higher level.