How to Focus for Learning

Introduction

Keeping attention refers to a focusing activity and a state of mental alertness. Once in that state, the mind does not engage in unnecessary details. The individual can learn and choose information. Attention is a catalyst to initiate learning.

Research has shown that people who have a high ability to focus share the characteristics of thinking critically and creatively. However, it is not always feasible to be aware of everything at the same time. This is especially true in the school setting where students need to focus on various ways the speed and information of material is presented. In order for students have to be able to see the main issue in a problem, understand the problem and to develop ideas they need to be focused.

Student will expend a high amount of cognitive effort to keep their attention for a long period of time. Part of keeping focused means preventing distractions from taking their attention away from the learning process. This can be particularly hard in a digital world. The more attention and focus on learning, the greater the knowledge will be. In addition, increased concentration during the learning process leads to a decreased chance of losing or forgetting the presented material.

Active Learning

The type of teaching method can affect learning. Research has shown that active learning (group discussions, pair) produces superior results from lecture-only teaching. Proponents of active learning believe that this method provides opportunities for exploration, confusion and resolution that directly leads to enhanced student learning. Another advantage to this method of learning is that it increases social interactions among students which may result in increased social networks leading to potential out-of-class learning.

Environment

The efficiency of learning can be affected by the environment or atmosphere. To have a conductive learning environment, the learning place should be quiet and not easily disturbed by external stimuli. However, even under the best conditions, the individual themselves can find their mind wandering to other things other than learning. Setting up a conducive environment is has been proven as a positive factor to affect concentration. Increased concentration leads to increased learning.

An effective learning environment comprises:

• condition of school buildings
• teacher-student relationships
• student facilitaties
• upright seating (not a reclined seat)
• quiet atmosphere
• right amount of students per room (not too crowded)

Technology and Learning

Information can be accessed anywhere, anytime now with the emergence of technology and mobile devices. Many scholars believe that there is a negative impact on students capacity to learn, understand and interact with each other as a result of easy information accessibility. Attention is one key factor that has been negatively influenced by technology.

Multitasking

Multi-tasking sometimes referred to as switch-tasking or task-switching is when an individual attempts to do multiple attention-requiring tasks at the same time. For students, multitasking or distracted learning promotes negative outcomes. Multi-learning tasks will take students longer due to the reasons below:

1. they will need to refamiliarise themselves with the assignment
2. switching back and forth between tasks causes mental fatigue
3. long term retention is impaired if their attention is divided during the encoding process,
4. the brain processes information different during distracted learning that is less useful

** The only time true multitasking can work is if both tasks are very simple and do not compete for the same mental resource.

Attention

There are five categories of attention:

1. Focused attention: refers to an individual’s ability to directly respond to specific visual, auditory, or tactile stimuli. Sohlberg and Mateer asserted that focused attention impairment typically occurs in the early stages of recuperation from a coma for patients who sustained brain injury and that focused attention is often the earliest recovered attentional function for such patients.
2. Sustained attention is the ability to maintain consistent behavioral responses during continuous or repetitive activities. Individuals who experience impairment in this attentional dimension can only focus transiently on a task or maintain a response for several seconds or minutes. They may also exhibit dramatic fluctuation in sustained attention over a short period of time.
3. Selective attention is an individual’s ability to maintain a behavior or cognitive set when faced with distractions or competing stimuli. Patients deficient in this attentional component can be easily distracted by stimuli that are irrelevant to their original task. These irrelevant stimuli generally include various types of external distractions (stimuli from the external environment such as scenery, sounds, or activity) or internal distractions (an individual’s internal worries, thoughts, or contemplations of personal importance to the individual). Clinically, patients with selective attention deficiency often cannot undergo therapy in a place with other stimuli present
4. Alternating attention is an individual’s ability to change the focus of attention and the mental flexibility to shift between tasks with different cognitive requirements. Patients with alternating attention deficiency have difficulty changing from a familiar stimulus–response model. They often require extra prompts to cope with changes of task. This attentional dimension is critical for students, such as when shifting between listening to lectures and writing notes. The cognitive requirements for the two tasks are different. Therefore, students must rely on their mental flexibility to effectively alternate their attention.
5. Divided attention is an individual’s ability to simultaneously respond to multiple tasks. Individuals engaged in divided attention handle tasks simultaneously across multiple stimuli (e.g., listening to the radio while driving or talking to others while preparing a meal). Under these circumstances, the individual must execute alternating attention rapidly and continuously or rely on subconscious automated procedures to manage one of multiple tasks.

More attention

sustained attention is an elementary cognitive function that underlies more complex forms of attention, such as divided or selective attention, and other cognitive domains, such as memory and learning