Multitasking

The main points of these three resources were that technology has a great influence on our minds and the tasks we try to finish. There are ways to multitask efficiently, but overall, attempting to multitask has the risk of not absorbing or completing tasks well. These resources really made me see that my mind is truly "hotwired." I feel the urge to constantly jump around from task to task, but in the end, none of the tasks are completed to my expectations. Not only do I jump around, but I listen to music with lyrics and I have the television on in the background. At the same time, I try to read difficult material from a book and realized after an hour, that I have read maybe three pages when without that extra technology, I could have read the whole chapter.

As a teacher, I want to encourage my students to learn efficient multitasking but also that it is okay just to focus on one task and make it complete before jumping to another task. A way to do this is by creating stations in the classroom. Each station will have one activity, and children will work on only this one activity for a time period. This way, they don't have to think about what other activities need to be finished before going home. At a school I tutored at, students would listen to i-pods, have email up on a laptop, and do homework. I don't know how these students were "honors" students because in their shoes, I could never get homework done well enough for an "A." In my classroom, I would promote music without lyrics and have it on for the whole classroom. Some may get distracted by this, even without lyrics, but I would give options. I would also promote efficient studying habits and homework techniques that do not promote multitasking, but rather efficiency.