<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi all. The problem of continuous partial attention (CPA) is growing. I'm particularly interested in how what might seem like productive multi-tasking could affect learning and comprehension in young people...a problem that Brian Holmes pointed out this am.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><DIV><DIV>There was a great NYT magazine article (Nov 26, 2006, link: <A href="http://www.kipp.org/08/pressdetail.cfm?a=291">http://www.kipp.org/08/pressdetail.cfm?a=291</A>) called "What it takes to make a student." In it, Paul Tough visits a highly successful charter school in inner city NYC where a new technique for eliminating CPA is working.<BR><DIV><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span">Students at the KIPP charter schools follow a system for learning invented by the founders, David Levin and Michael Feinberg, called SLANT. The acronym sums up the appropriate classroom behavior: <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes</SPAN>. The following is quoted from Tough's article:</SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"Levin’s contention is that Americans of a certain background learn these methods for taking in information early on and employ them instinctively. KIPP students, he says, need to be taught the methods explicitly. And so it is a little unnerving to stand at the front of a KIPP class; every eye is on you. When a student speaks, every head swivels to watch her. To anyone raised in the principles of progressive education, the uniformity and discipline in KIPP classrooms can be off-putting. But the kids I spoke to said they use the Slant method not because they fear they will be punished otherwise but because it works: it helps them to learn. (They may also like the feeling of having their classmates’ undivided attention when they ask or answer a question.) When Levin asked the music class to demonstrate the opposite of Slanting — “Give us the normal school look,” he said — the students, in unison, all started goofing off, staring into space and slouching. Middle-class Americans know intuitively that “good behavior” is mostly a game with established rules; the KIPP students seemed to be experiencing the pleasure of being let in on a joke."</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Levin and Feinberg's SLANT method works on inner-city elementary and middle school students but what about for college students and academics? Have we forgotten how to be polite--how to fully focus on a lecture? Or are standards of "politeness" changing based on the exploding market for peripheral mobile communication devices? Attend any academic conference with a wireless network and ask yourself how many people in the audience are following the discussion 100%. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Closing the laptop lid and trying out the SLANT method might be educational for us older folk as well as the younger ones.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Cheers, Tiff</DIV><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">____________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Tiffany Holmes, Associate Professor</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Chair, Department of Art and Technology Studies</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The School of the Art Institute of Chicago</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">112 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60603</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Phone: 312-345-3760, Fax: 312-345-3565</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Mobile: 312-493-0302</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.tiffanyholmes.com">http://www.tiffanyholmes.com</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>