How People Learn Panel: attention and Social media

1. How People Learn Panel: attention and Social media Susan Ravizza

2. Attention and Memory How does attention improve or worsen recall of information?

3. Two kinds of attention • Voluntary – you decide where you are going to place your attention • Effortful • Involuntary – your attention is captured by novel or salient information • Automatic

4. Voluntary attention • Selection of important information • Ignoring distracting information

5. Involuntary attention You just won 5 million dollars! • If drawn to irrelevant information, can hurt memory performance

6. Involuntary attention • Important information might not get into memory • Might “overwrite” information that is already in memory • Can it help improve memory if captured by important information? • Example: Is your memory better for loud commercials?

7. My research • Using “tricks” to capture attention to important information can be useful when voluntary attention may be diminished • Recall improves for items at the end of a list when: • Presented at a surprising location • Presented in an “important” color

8. Social media & Multi-tasking The iGeneration

9. Media multi-tasking • Prevalence of portable iDevices and laptops in classroom • Students are multi-tasking in class often with social media like Facebook, texting, IM, Twitter • 845 million monthly active users of Facebook • 483 million daily active users of Facebook

10. Voluntary attention • Students can decide to check facebook or tweet moving their attention away from class material

11. Effect in classroom • A study of texting in class (Ellis, Daniels, Jauregui, 2010) • Undergrads in their first accounting class • Lecture followed by unexpected quiz • Half of the students asked to text their professor 3 times • Other half, no texting • Quiz scores of texters are lower than non-texters • Not dependent on GPA

12. Involuntary attention • Many social media tools draw our attention automatically • Buzzing cell phones • Facebook/twitter alert boxes

13. Can social media be used effectively in classroom? • 50 ways to use twitter in the classroom • Could help shy students ask questions? • Capture their attention back to class by tweeting material? • May lose control of classroom • More evaluation is needed

14. Summary • Attention to material is important for committing that information to memory • Involuntary attention that is drawn to relevant information can improve memory • Lots of competing sources of information in classroom • Best to find a way to work with this technology