Dan Willingham has written a pretty interesting analysis on students’ attention, and the challenges teachers are having to attracting it.

Check out Pay Attention, Kid!: Has the use of digital technology impaired students’ ability to focus?

He reviews various potential causes for this challenge, but finds that there is not enough evidence to really come to a certain explanation.

I’ve posted the “money quote” in the above textbox.

I’ve always made a priority of creating the conditions where students can see the progress they have made – whether it’s by sharing a list of vocabulary words at the beginning of a unit where they mark which ones they know, and then they revisit the same list at the end of the unit; or giving students at the end of the year the opportunity to revise essays they wrote at the beginning of the year; or having them record themselves reading a text in September, and then have them listen to that and redo it in June so they can see how much their prosody has improved.

I’m adding this info to Best Posts On “Motivating” Students.