Learning and the Brain, initial thoughts…

Learning & the Brain
In the first two days of this conference there are a few themes that are recurring, and that I think are of immediate interest to many of us. The first is about the debate that goes back and forth concerning multitasking; can it be done, are kids doing it, what are the implications? The second is about the importance of sleep, which is something the IT group had looked into last summer. Finally, the third is the importance of nature and activity on the health of our brain, and our ability to learn.

I’ll start with multitasking. Most of us have observed a student or other young person using a computer, perhaps typing at the keyboard, while also listening to music, texting on a cell phone, or even watching a video or the television. On the surface, this appears to be several tasks or activities that are occurring at the same time. We typically call this multitasking. The first few speakers here this weekend would call this task switching.

Task switching is what happens when we turn our conscious attention from one activity to another.

Two types of task switching were discussed by Steven Yantis…

1. Sequential processing requires that we focus our attention on one activity at a time, such as driving and texting (this example was used a lot, by multiple speakers).
2. Parallel processing refers to two or more tasks being done simultaneously, or seemingly so. This would be like using a hands free phone to speak whole driving.

The research presented indicates that while you may be engaged in multiple tasks simultaneously, you cannot focus your attention fully on more than one task at a time. Studies show that even hands free speaking while driving results in decreased ability to respond to changes. Any time that your brain has to make a decision, it focuses on one task.

Interestingly, by practicing performing the same tasks simultaneously, you could sometimes improve performance, but not to the point that you could perform both tasks as well as if you were performing one at a time.

Given that practice can improve, if not overcome, this decrease in performance, it might not be surprising to learn that the degree of familiarity with a task has an impact on how well you can task switch. As an example, if you listen to a song that is very familiar, one to which you know the tune and words, you can task switch more effectively than if you listen to something new. One presenter suggested allowing students to listen to an iPod while performing class work, but only from a specific playlist of songs that are very familiar.

Is task switching bad? Based on the presentations yesterday, there is always interference when attempting to perform multiple tasks, and much more time is required to perform the tasks, ie. the time required to complete all tasks when task switching is greater than would be the sum of the time to perform tasks individually. The more tasks a person is switching between, the greater the impact on time to process. There is an impairment. I don’t know if that makes it bad, but you will need to plan more time into your schedule to get everything done!

Interesting last tidbit on this subject….a recent study referred to in the session compared groups of people who were high multiple media types ( people who had several inputs and activities occurring at the same time, tv, texting, music, web browsing, while doing homework) vs people who were low multiple media types (people who tended to perform one task at a time, or who had only one or two forms of media going at the same time). This study showed that high media multitasking people thought that they were really good at multitasking, but results showed that the low media multitask sets were actually better, even as more media was presented during tasks.

All for now….