Download transcript PDF

00:00:04
well so today we we have been talking about IG generation gen generation whatever uh name we give to them and uh in the first session actually you have already somehow characterized the digital natives or Zoomers and screeners so I'm not going to focus that much on the characteristics but still I would like to recup a little bit what is important in my opinion also when we look at the learning process teaching process from more from psychological point of view as I'm a psychologist psychotherapist so I will try to look at

00:00:40
this from this perspective okay so well uh of course the digital natives highly proficient in Te technology using smartphones uh social media platforms all these things of course uh they are visual Learners and I think we all know that visual uh content such as videos images is it's something uh the generation likes and they uh it resonates well and uh it gives them better understanding so text is being replaced by images we can say yeah they are authenticy Seekers definitely the new generation they value authentic and

00:01:18
transparent communication it's really important for them how we communicate with with them how teacher communicates with them so they really favor genuine interactions H personalization or has already said about that uh personalization that it's important that we create experiences which are based on the individual interest needs uh because they they they don't want to learn something which is not relevant to them a need for instant feedback is important because a need for instant Fe feedback

00:01:50
and rewards is something very typical of this of this generation the constant stimulation creates like a dopamin driven feedback loop you know and it gives them pleasure and reward so somehow uh they are dependent on this dopamine pleasure and and reward uh for more we know like anxiety of being disconnected we can also observe it in even among all the generation how much we're attached to it boredom so um students from that generation they have aversion to task which they perceive as IR irrelevant or

00:02:30
engaging and is also important from the teaching point of view of course limited attention span you know that's that's really interesting that current estimates suggest that the average attention span of iren has declined to around eight seconds so it's shorter than that of a goldfish because goldfish attention span is n seconds and it is a huge challenge for us teachers I guess also multitasking yeah we JZ jungle like five screens at a time and it's not difficult for them they they multitask but

00:03:08
unfortunately the research shows that multitasking not always bring good results because very often the the focus is decreased and they can't really concentrate they can't they can't learn as much as they could if they if they didn't do so many things at the same time but on the other hand the research shows that uh I generation watching some ads for shorter than two seconds they can remember more twice more the generation over 40 so you know they they have this uh enormous ability to uh to

00:03:42
pay attention to very short uh video for instance okay so reduce attention it's important when we look at the at the learning process because reduce attention really inhibits students ability to engage in deep learning we know that deep learning mean means we we we try to build some higher order skills yeah like thinking critically solving some complex problems work collabor collaboratively communicate learn how to learn all these things connected with developing some uh academic mindsets so

00:04:17
deeper learning unfortunately is very much reduced if the attention is not good enough um mental health uh Ula has has already mentioned a little bit about it but because of my background I'm really very much cautious about mental health or Generations that because nearly two3 of Jers report experiencing at least one mental problem during last two years so uh they say that about about 44% say that they they have like anxious feelings or they are constantly nervous and 33% say that they are depressed so they they suffer from

00:05:02
depression and hopeless feelings also um the report prepared by the galup uh Institute uh presents the the results which show that almost half so 50% of uh gers often on always feel anxious so we have this problem that Generation Z has reported higher level of Stress and Anxiety when you compare it to previous generations why is it so of course there many different reasons of depression of mental illnesses and I have no time actually to explore it more but it's very very important so the average young

00:05:38
person has declined some abilities and that's what they say that that they they have um the they they have the ability to do the following things decline like name and understand feelings recognize reoccurring patterns of thought and behavior way the pros and cons of decisions navigating feelings St stay motivated by meaningful values to new possibilities emphasize with others and feel connected to a bigger purpose that's what actually research shows and uh and uh the generation set says so the one of the

00:06:16
biggest problem is concentration we know that the concentration is the secret of strength that's what Ral valdo meron said and I think now we have the the people Generations that born digital and if we can even we can even share the story of destructed Generations so U very often we say that they face the destruction crisis that generation that they face destruction crisis so before we talk what to do about destruction let's try to understand what destruction is and what it means because we can look at

00:06:52
this at the destruction from different perspectives is a multi faceted phenomena that has of course profound implication for Learning and cognitive performance and uh from psychological Point View the psychological research suggest that distractions can come from two sources internal and external so external distractions they include like visual auditory stimula in the environment so it can be a noise from classmates sometimes we have students who are really very noisy and also of course it could be not notifications

00:07:27
from electronic devices but besides that we also have internal distractions which involve our thoughts emotions stresses that compete also for attention sometimes our thoughts you know can be very distracting because we we go somewhere else yeah so from uh from psychological point of view um that this inter the we know that learning is a cognitive uh process which deeply really deeply rely on attention so um you know if you want to learn something you need to have the ability to select and on some information you

00:08:07
have to be able to filter some information and research also demonstrated that even brief uh distractions can significantly imper students ability to retrive information and apply knowledge effect effectively so interruptions during learning such as checking messages engaging with social media really can lead to sub tension reduction in retention and recall as I said here um the neuro neurobiological roots of distruction from a neurobiological perspective destruction is closely linked to the brain's reward

00:08:45
system which is designed to seek our novelty and instant gratification that's what I've already mentioned so the constant availability of digital stimuli activates the brain's dopamine system you know it releases feel-good chemicals that motivate us to engage with our devices it's very similar that the mechanis is very similar uh as the one which leads to addiction you know because our brains become conditioned to Crave the instant gratification and constant stimulation provided by

00:09:20
technology so it's quite D dangerous because some changes happen also on the neural um level and our brains are changing become changing or the the the the students brains are changing become changing because of using the devices uh of course uh there are some cognitive cause of of Destruction when students feel distracted uh they cognitive uh resources are divided between the task they have at hand and also the digital stimuli which compete for the for the attention and it imp as working memory reduces learning

00:10:02
efficiency decreases retention um lots of research on that uh in the in journals of educational psychology if anybody's interested also it can have a big impact on social and emotional uh level so increased distruction in the classroom May contribute first of all to feelings of anxiety and frustration among students so we we can observe So-Cal cycle of distruction and emotional disregulation students are emotionally disregulated it's quite visible nowadays also peer relationships can be affected because

00:10:40
what students may choose to engage in some distraction related behaviors out of the social obligation or fear of missing out so they are not present in the moment and in the place where they are yeah and sometimes you can see students you know being somewhere else uh I don't know if you if you have it with your students but you know I work at University uh so I have this elder uh Generations that student but still some sometimes they are not present you know we are talking about something but they

00:11:08
are not there and of course it has a huge impact on on academic performance because um there's a notion of context dependent memory which plays a critical role in in learning especially when learning occurs in a distracted State what happens the neural Pathways as assciated with the learning may not be effectively encoded so it leads to difficulties when students try to attempt to recall some information later then we have a phenomena called task switching we all know it or the effort to juggle multiply cognitive demands and

00:11:49
it leads to cognitive overhead and this overhead usually manifest in increased mental fatigue and decreased ability to do some complex tasks you know so again there are lot there are lots of there is lots of evidence and research showing how much it's all correlated you know this mental fatigue our students experience so as you see it's not easy we have we can look at the struction from different perspectives and I can of course talk more and more but but I don't have much more time so how can a

00:12:24
distracting generation learn anything or how to adapt the traditional curriculum you know and to accommodate students uh with some different probably ways of teaching and learning it's not easy and again there are many debates discussions how to do it what to do of course we always say that meet students where they are so first we have to access and then engage you know you need to know who you have in your classroom and you need to know what they like and how they operate so even such thing like

00:12:56
some digital habits and expectation is good when you access and align the digital habits of your students because it has completely changed um as I said even at the University my students who are not teenagers because they are already in the TW 20s they have a completely different expectations different digital habits even the apps they use are different you know so when you look at the apps being used look we have J Zed use some dedicated messaging apps to communicate with different groups of people different with family

00:13:29
is different with with the PS with some you know interest groups completely different so of course some here you have some statistics uh which has been change have been changing drastically every month actually um how often uh us students check their mobile phone like four minutes every four minutes or how much time they spend and uh during the month or day using the devices I can imagine that it might be different in in different countries but still there are the statistics which are I think close

00:14:02
to all of us and what is important the messages sent via dedicated messaging apps they have higher open rate and this important that if you want to use uh some apps let's use the ones they are using yeah so for instance emails because it was quite interesting for me to find out that that students don't check emails you know I send emails to my students at University and very often they don't respond because it turns out that 677 % of gen gen Z rarely or never or almost never use email to communicate

00:14:36
over 30% claim to have more than 1,000 unread emails one in every eight emails are opened and 75% of students avoid phone calls which is also quite interesting I think so what else can we tell about uh about ens first of all you know you have already mentioned it I guess when you were describing the the generation the generation that has a strong sense of self-determination and self agency these people young people they don't rely on elders for information as much as the previous generation did you know they are not

00:15:15
afraid to challenge things they are really very very uh they have very internal locus of control they they they self-efficacy seems to be high sometimes it's just very apparent and when you look deeper in is not that uh good but still the self agency and self-determination is really really high uh so how to get and keep just that attention it's really really a challenge uh of course we can aim for under two minutes but how can you teach anything if it's shorter than two minutes we can suggest different things

00:15:51
short form videos are definitely perfect for social media platforms uh but we need to keep in mind that that they can switch from from different devices five devices at the same time so it's it's quite important that you know they they can't keep their attention on one thing so what can we do we can give short birth of content first thing we can break up lectures every 10 minutes by playing a video or having a discussion or group activity so just break the lecture into smaller chunks encourage

00:16:22
students to get up and move around the classroom because this is a very kinesthetic generation uh this generation likes movement they don't want to sit at the desk uh in one place they definitely feel better when they go around when they when they can have a chance to talk to each other and move around uh there's a technique I use very often in in management and also in business institutions which call probably you are familiar with that it's called the Pomodoro Technique Pomodoro techniques means that the ideal unit of

00:16:56
work is 25 minutes and then we should have a two or 5 minute break with your students the the ideal unit of work can be even shorter and then you can have a break so it means that you can have a device like this Pomodoro do something and then after 10 minutes 15 or 20 just change it and you can have sound announcing that 10 minutes has passed or 20 minutes has passed and so they it can help to structure their brains and and focus on the on the activity you are just doing um next thing is teach how to think

00:17:33
because as as we already all said I think uh now it's not difficult to get information because there are uh many sources of information and uh the generation set is really very competent at finding information but information become becomes ubiquitous and success is no longer about having and knowing most but it's ability to think critically and creatively yes so of course ironically the very skill that digital media undermines by by lowering the attention span so it's very important to teach how

00:18:06
to think uh how to teach critically and how to teach creatively so if you think of tuur Gates or SBR all these people it's funny but it's I think we're remembering they they are very successful today but it wasn't because they could code it was because they could think so thinking skill critical thinking skill creative thinking skill this is something our students need and we should teach them so all these digital digital skills are important but we need to Foster digital literacy

00:18:40
critical thinking by by uh helping students to develop skills to eval evaluate credibility and accuracy of information they get and also uh just to create some responsible online Behavior so you have to teach students about their digital citizenship Online safety many other things which are connected also with with ethical use of Technology um what can we do what else because sometimes we think that uh that students have no chance to live without uh without their devices without phones and so on and I would like to suggest that

00:19:19
it's good to organize something like phone freeze so you can ask your students to put defa away and freeze in a place for 10 minutes and during this time you can you can you can have time to reflect on what and why they get distracted what distracts the mou maybe it is just the phone and how they can minimalize the structures in future so after this freeze you can facilitate the discussion but it's good just to have this moment when they free sometimes uh it's also good to have to have something

00:19:50
like no phone challenge it's the the challenge is the idea proposed by sugat Mitra probably familiar with this uh lecture and and speaker and he suggested that it would be great if you encourage your students to participate in a non chall non phone Challenge and nowadays we have lots of different challenges connected with Being Fit uh being slim and so on so uh the challenge would be uh like stay abstaining from using their phones for let's say 12 hours 42 hours depending what you want you can you can

00:20:23
also provide your students with some incentives for successful completion of this Talent of this of this task of this challenge some reward or bonus Point whatever and then you discuss the results and and talk about these difficulties or how they felt and so on and it's possible then we have something called phone free zones when you have you know a place in the classroom uh designate as a phone free zone and where students are encouraged to put their phones away and engage with the p but it's important to create a visually a

00:20:57
peeling display you know to remind students of phone free zone and everybody should respect also teachers yeah so then you can expand the Zone but it's good to have a place where mobile phones or any devices are not used and it's actually forbidden to use then we have something like digital detox so uh it's good to organize something like a detox event could be different uh where students and teachers obstain again from using devices for certain period but it's a challenge for teachers

00:21:31
because it means that you have to organize something really engaging something which would be entertaining and and students would be really uh participating in it on the left you have here the photo shows the uh detox camp in Taiwan where students were were participating in the camp for two weeks without any digital digital devices and afterwards it turned out that the level of frustration anxiety went down and actually they they felt really very well only the beginning was hard because you know everybody is so much used to using

00:22:05
phones another thing is focus on Flow I'm sure you are familiar with this concept of flow so how to focus on Flow so you have to introduce the concept of flow explain how it helps students to stay focused and engaged again to do it you have to design a project or lesson which requires students to work in this state of of flow so you know I would like you to reflect when you are in a state of flow so what really what do you have any activity which you are so completely immersed that you don't think

00:22:37
about anything else yeah yeah I love skiing for instance so when I ski I forget about all my problems and and things I have to do different things it's difficult because it can be like you know like drama activity it can be like project where students are totally emerge and they they forget about anything else that it and it works then next thing is self reflection Ula has already talked about the diary and I would also uh suggest to introduce a concept of self-reflection and his role in developing self-awareness and

00:23:09
self-regulation so not necessarily you have to write a journal about your progress but also you can write a journal where you where you put down your thoughts feelings Behavior you know to create a higher level of self-awareness because very often our students and also us adults we are not fully self-aware you know emotionally and I think it it does help to deal with difficult thoughts difficult emotions also not only teach not only students but also teachers it can be also connected with mindfulness practice you

00:23:43
know we we have been talking a lot about mindful mindfulness recently but it does help we we use mindfulness practice also to to work with depressed students uh with patients so mindful briefing and some exercises uh connected with focusing attention on one thing they can really help and they can work you can you can even uh introduce something called body scan meditation so you scan your body I think we had one day here during the festival dedicated to mindfulness so so probably you know it mindful briefing lots of different

00:24:17
exercises there's also exercise called R recognize allow investigate and non judge so your thoughts and emotions you can you can prepare a Sunscape immersion so you play a nature soundscape recording yeah and then you can guide students to focus on the individual sounds and then they have to translate the words into English so they can learn some words so you can combine mindfulness with vocabulary building and active listening mindful reading again you can have students read a short passage in English and before starting

00:24:51
guide them to notice how they feel they can notice they posture and while reading again they can pay attention to some Sensations that arise and emotions and then you can discuss it use different vocabulary and Gramma breath again before doing some grammar you can inhale you can you can do some mindfulness exercises it will also help to let the stress of about gramar go which is important for some students another thing neurobic exercises uh what is is um this is the uh actually the concept which allows student to to engage

00:25:28
different senses so what can you do there are many exercises just some to share with you novelty shock you can have students ask to do some intentional to do something un unusual each day like you know take a different rout to school or eat with their non dominant hand you know sometimes we go to school to work and you don't even pay attention where you are going yeah so this disrupts autopilot and forces the brain to pay attention and then you can discuss it how it works sensory overwat again you

00:26:00
can conduct a lesson with deliberately unusual sensory input you can either play classical music backwards you can change the lighting different things short burst uh Force the brain to recalibrate and strengthen attention yeah and also uh cross model connections for instance you can read a short story aloud and then ask students to to draw the scene with blindfolding it's a really great exercise uh and again you can you can get them out of this autopilot um State well and I don't know if you are familiar with a stoop

00:26:42
test have you ever heard about stoop test the sto test is a very known psychological experiment or a neuros pychological test we use it very often to access cognitive functions like perception memory particularly particular person ability to inhibit some cognitive interference sometimes we use it with people who are at risk for Dementia or Alzheimer so what can you do in the class if you don't know it you can create a Str like test using English vocabulary so you write the word in a different color the ink and students

00:27:18
must say the color of the ink and not the word you know and this mismatch uh it's quite difficult for some people because you know we we do it again much mechanically so you have so try yourself look at the screen and read to yourself the words but not the word but the color the word is written in how how is it for you okay yes you can practice something like that it really helps uh with cognitive skills another thing intermittent fasting for brain power intermittent fasting are you familiar with I think

00:27:59
now we have lot of different diets and people are familiar with a trying to use to get Slim So the principle is that the brief periods of mild stress while like short breaks from food can increase brain the right neutrophic factor which supports neuron growth and synaptic plasticity of course we can we don't do it in in the classro but H what can we do we can do like brain brick recharge so it doesn't mean that you have to fast and not eat but you can Implement some structured breaks where students engage

00:28:34
in physical physically active and mentally stimulating activities so they are away from screens so the most important thing the key is the idea of resetting the brain so doing something different doing something else yeah so instead of sitting in front of the of the screen they have to move they have to do something else and this fasting can really help us to again reset the brain and another thing autonomy arcade we know that that this generation uh looks for autonomy so you can prepare the menu of different activities you

00:29:08
want to you want to do with them and they can choose what they want to do if they want to read watch something and they let them feel more responsible for their choices then of course gamification lots of different ideas the one the concentration Quest so you can you can frame the learning activity as a quest with a compelling story line and students must complete task to advance through the quest there are many virtual adventures and then they can then can they can have some Clues riddles obstacles they can they have to deal

00:29:41
with uh virtual Escape rooms is quite now popular among among Generations that they love having uh Escape rooms organizing some parties and things like that so you can always create a virtual escape room where students must solve some again puzzles riddles challenges related to to to the English language and grammar and they like it and they get engage so a personalized uh learning I think we have already covered it also in the first session that definitely students look for activities which somehow allow them to develop their

00:30:20
interests their needs and they strengths and I because I do uh deal with and cope with positive psychology so so I try to advocate for positive approach to students so let's rely on strengths everybody has a strength everybody has different strengths but we need to know what strengths our students have what what are your strengths and then instead of looking at the deficiencies you can look at strengths and definitely you can use it when you when you design the lesson for students so different

00:30:49
personalized learning things um which are connected with their interests uh in the book find your voice by mcmillion you can find lots of wonderful wonderful activities enhancing engagement and you can connect to interests of your students you can you can use some real world applications definitely a gorgeous material and resources to to be used um the same is with some Project based learning group work debates discussions all all of these you can find in the book um wonderful ideas um it's

00:31:23
important also to remember that because the attention span is very limited so so you have to use varied activities so mix it up chunk and organize some brain braks yeah so it you it can't be like one long thing but it's better when you have different different activities you jungle with them you chunk them and in between you have some brain breaks goal setting and reflection very important because um if you want to have your students engag they need to know why they are engaged what they do what what

00:31:56
their goals are because sometimes you can be very surpr what is the goal of the student why why they want to learn or they don't want to learn English and also trying to encourage empathy and peer support because we are living in very individualistic society and I guess that our mission is also to teach students to be more empathetic to to give support to to the peers and uh for me one of the most important thing is emotional teaching and learning because that they needs emotion stimulus students from the generation that need

00:32:31
emotional stimul look here you have the chart showing um the results of the research taken in 2009 and 2022 by state of the heart is a report and the the position which looks really scary is navigate emotions how much this skill is disappearing so so students cannot navigate emotions and say the same is with adults really with us but it's something is the challenge is the the task for us to help them to support them with navigating navigating their emotions so emotional teaching talking about emotions you can use lots of

00:33:08
different uh ideas I think uh Alex will tell about it later but but in find your voice um we have prepared for you I have written as a little book about big emotions so you can find there lots of different activities for the classroom how to manage the emotions of the teenagers you can create an emotional Story Board because story is is a wonderful way you know to connect we connect through stories so they can create a simple story story board over a scene they can they can tell the story you can tell the story you know we

00:33:44
connect through stories and really I think it's something which makes people engaged and it's easy when you when you use either digital story board or you really create a story in the classroom different uh different elements to to keep the discipline like clear expectations strategic setting you know it's also important when you when you put the students where you position them you have to position students who are who have bigger problems with with uh attention span closer to you uh you can

00:34:19
have some signal for attention so you can use a specific signal to regain students attention and you can use lots of different elements to to rain inflence positively uh the the the attention and engagement in the classroom so for me uh even that we have to use the technology we have to use the technology widely and mindfully uh what is really important is building relationships because technology is important and we can use it for many good reasons but uh if we don't build relationships I think we will have more

00:34:52
and more mental problems with our students so get to know your students create a welcoming envirment M identify also struggling students and offer personalized support so all is go all goes around relationships and being in touch we can't B Bend phones because you know it won't happen it's impossible yes so we have to give students only the guidance how to use the the the devices but not necessarily Banning phones produces any good results so we need real people interacting with the world

00:35:27
so the platform maybe technology but the engine behind reaching the generation that has to be a human and that's what it's actually is my message to you that the face-to-face interaction with the teacher still is the most important component in the classroom and it's the only thing we can do and I guess that we have lot of power to do it and and energy so thank you very much