Written by Jenny Gillespie - College Counsellor

Attention and the Multi-Tasking Myth 

Many misconceptions about how we learn exist in the media age of instant information and understanding these can assist students achieve during exams. The following is a summary of a great article by ‘Elevate Education’ on this topic.

The amount of content that a student can remember will directly impact on what they write in their exams and by extension, the marks they get. This makes the act or process of memorising a set of notes extremely important for students to do their best.

The process of memorising information has a number of steps, the first being to simply pay attention to what we are attempting to memorise. This first step is the easiest of the memory steps, but interestingly the one that most students have the greatest difficulty with, as most students find themselves studying whilst surrounded by a range of distractions. Research shows that these distractions serve to limit the amount of information that students can remember and recall in an exam and therefore how well they do in the exam room. As such, students should think of TV, radio, music, younger siblings, phones, text-messages, Youtube and the latest photos or updates on Facebook not just as distractions, but as the causes of lost marks.

The most obvious solution to the problem of distractions is locating students in environments without distractions such as a study or a bedroom. But in many cases parents don’t promote or encourage this for two mistaken reasons:

Firstly, the belief that their children, as members of Gen Z, have been born with an innate ability to multi-task. This belief has become increasingly common as the media increasingly discusses the tech savviness of children. However, one of the problems with this is that your children’s brains haven’t taken an evolutionary long-jump in the last 10 years. That is, just because students have unprecedented access to data and information, doesn’t mean that they can effectively process or use that information. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Research shows that students who multi-task have lower levels of memory retention and recall than students focusing on one separate task, reinforcing the need for students to remove distractions and resist attempting to multi-task.

Secondly, the mistaken belief that because you can multi-task as a parent, that your child should have the same ability. Research shows that the ability to block out distractions increases with age which means that whilst you may be able to block out background noise, your children are much less likely to be able to. As such, every time the volume on the TV spikes for an ad break, the kettle boils or the phone rings, their attention is disrupted and their ability to memorise what they are working on drops.

For further information or specific tips on how to manage study distractions please contact Brett Armstrong or Jenny Gillespie in the School Counselling Office.

Blurred Minds

On Wednesday, students in Year 10 participated in age-appropriate health education lesson run by The Blurred Minds Academy.

The Blurred Minds Academy is an evidence-based alcohol and drug education and research service operated by Griffith University. Students attended a 1.5-hour workshop discussing the use of alcohol (misuse and health) and vaping (health and deception).

We know that teen alcohol and drug use is influenced by many factors including biology, psychology and social influences and the topics addressed included chemical facts, media matters, peer pressure and health statistics.

The Blurred Minds session helped engage students with relevant and meaningful information designed to change their beliefs and behaviours for the better.

I encourage you to discuss with your year 10 student their impressions of this week’s Blurred Mind lesson and use the opportunity to generate dialogue re: wellbeing in general terms.

For questions or further information please contact either Brett or Jenny in the School Counselling Office.