This presentation is designed to help classroom teachers manage the flow of attention in their students. Topics covered include identifying the three types of attention and how they impact learning, teaching strategies that maximize attention while not overloading working memory, and practical classroom management tools such as how to give effective directions and using music to increase on-task focus.

1. Teaching in
the Age of
Distraction :
Managing the
Flow of
Attention
Presented by
Willy Wood

2. “OK,
fellas, we
have
some
new
rules!”

3. How full is
full?

4. Distracted
Drivers respond
one and a half
seconds slower

5. Sources of
Distraction

7. “Better
Attention
Always
Equals
Better
Learning.”
-John
Medina

8. Arousal

9. Medium Arousal Level is Best

10. Ways to Raise
Arousal
• Acknowledgements
• Affirmations
• Celebrations
• Music
• Movement
• Choices

11. Stimulus Driven
Attention

12. “The human brain—like the brains of
all vertebrates—is hardwired to
immediately notice sudden movement
in our field of vision. We not only
notice, we are compelled to look.
When our evolutionary predecessors
gathered on the African savanna three
million years ago and the leaves next
to them moved, the ones who didn’t
look are not our ancestors.”
-Al Gore

13. Controlled Attention

14. What Gets
Our
Attention?

15. Will it eat me?
Can I eat it?

16. Can I
mate
with
it?
Will
it
mate
with
me?

17. Have I
seen it
before?

18. Novelty

19. Same old,
Same old
Too weird for
understanding
More
Familiar
Novel
Less
Familiar
Recognizable,
but not routine

20. Routine

21. Novelty
should be
used for
Instruction

22. Routines
should be
used for
Management

23. “You can have your students’ Attention
or they can be making meaning, but never
both at the same time.”
-Eric Jensen

24. The “Tides”
of Learning

25. Crest of
the Wave

26. Attentio
n
Signals

27. Eliminate
Distractions

28. Don’t
Overload
Working
Memory

29. The
Exception:
Flow

30. “Multi-tasking, when it
comes to paying
attention, is a myth.”
-John Medina

31. “…A person who is
interrupted takes 50
percent longer to
accomplish a task.
Not only that, he or
she makes up to 50
percent more
errors.”
-John Medina

32. The art
of giving
effectiv
e
directio
ns

33. One
At a
Time

34. See Me

35. Background
Music

36. Characteristics of Background
Music: Behind Individual Work
• Instrumental only
• 60 to 80 beats per minute
• Unfamiliar
• Repetitive
• Very low volume
• Genre not important

37. Characteristics of
Background Music:
Behind Small
Group Discussions
• Instrumental only
• 80 to 100 beats
per minute
• Medium volume
• Genre not
important

38. How full is
full?

40. Thank you
for your kind
attention!