Walk into any teacher store and you will find a slew of colorful stickers—Wow! Amazing! Great Job! You’re #1! Excellent! Smart Cookie! Good one! A++! We add brightly colored stickers or markings to student work as a stamp of approval, hoping children will continue this kind of work.
The problem is that it doesn’t tell children anything important. In fact, this kind of “feedback”—vague praise—can do the very opposite of what we are trying to accomplish.
The backlash against teaching to the test came for a good reason. Teachers were teaching students what they needed to know in order to pass whichever test the school district deemed to be most important that year. Teachers sacrificed academic content to make sure students knew how to answer the test questions. The focus was on passing the test, not on what was best for students. Unfortunately, many teachers threw the baby out with the bath water. And that was a huge mistake. You should teach to the test, but only if you do it the right way.
“Give me a second. I know this. Hold on. Uuugghh! It’s on the tip of my tongue. I know it but I can’t explain it.”
Have you ever heard something like this from your students? It is frustrating for students and for teachers.
Are students’ attention spans shrinking? That’s what a new study suggests. Teachers have always been able to use chronological age +1 as a guide for the length of a student’s attention span for learning.
This means an 8-year-old typically can hold their attention for about 9 minutes. That would also mean that a 14-year-old should be able to hold their attention for about 15 minutes. Interestingly, the research is now leaning toward 10-minute attention spans.
Does this mean you can’t use chronological age +1 as a guide any more? No. You can engage students in a way that helps increase their attention span. (more…)