WHAT WE KNOW FROM BRAIN RESEARCH
To determine what works and how to gain and maintain student attention most effectively and efficiently, it is prudent to consider how some of the brain re- search of the past two decades informs thinking. Jensen (2000) states that the challenge for a teacher is knowing how to capitalize on the brain’s attentional biases while also engaging students in meaningful learning. This challenge is twofold: (1) capturing students’ attention and (2) sustaining their focus on what the teacher deems to be important.
Two generalizations derived from brain research have implications for class- room practice. The first is that “the human brain is designed to selectively at- tend to stimuli . . . has a built-in bias for certain types of stimuli . . . and a natural prioritization process is occurring all the time, consciously and uncon- sciously” (Jensen, 2000, p. 121). Second, key factors in the brain’s initial filter- ing include novelty or contrast to what is familiar, intensity of stimuli, move- ment, and emotion (Wolfe, 2001; Jensen, 2000).
Zaretta Hammond (2015) adds a cultural perspective to all of this.
Before we can be motivated to learn what is in front of us we must pay attention to it. Every brain’s RAS (Reticular Activating System) is tuned to novelty, relevance, and emotion but each person interprets these three elements through his particular cultural lens. Cultures based on an oral
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PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
tradition rely heavily on the RAS to activate learning using music, call and response, and other attention grabbing strategies to signal something im- portant. (p. 48)
These imply the need to design learning experiences that are vivid, varied, and delivered with passion and enthusiasm for the subject matter. Learning experi- ences that begin with or incorporate an element of novelty or surprise grab at- tention. Examples would be the physics teacher who introduces Newton’s first law by ripping a tablecloth from under a place setting without disturbing it, the math teacher who enters dressed as Cleopatra when she will be teaching about number systems and place value, or two teachers who stage an argument in front of the class to introduce a lesson on conflict and conflict resolution.
Children are often criticized for “not paying attention.” There is no such thing as not paying attention; the brain is always paying attention to some- thing. What we really mean is that the child or student is not paying atten- tion to what we think is relevant or important. Attention, as all of us know, is selective. (Wolfe, 2011, p. 80)
Jensen (2000) notes that the “brain is designed to attend selectively to stimuli, prioritizing on the basis of perceived importance and screening out that which seems to be less crucial to survival. The level of attention people apply to a learn- ing situation is influenced or limited by their perception of its value” (p. 121). And Wolfe (2011) holds that “two factors strongly influence whether the brain initially attends to arriving information and whether this attention will be sustained” (p. 83). These two factors are meaning and emotion. Thus for students to want to attend, they need to know why something is important, personally relevant, and worthy of their attention.