Field Study in Student Distractions

Just one more round.  Just one more episode.  These are the things that lure our student's during their at home study times.  Part of instructor's role in the courses with these students is to lure them instead into the subject matter.  This can be done, one assignment at a time.  Our competition in this, are all the distractions student's encounter while they are on the computer before they get to these said assignments.
Distractions in today's day are everywhere.  Who among us can live without our cell phone for just one day?  I've done it from necessity of an event requiring it to be "checked-in."  Usually it takes two days of it being gone, to unconsciously stop looking for it at any given free moment. 

So they seem to be here to stay.  How can we work with these given distractions? Assignments can be placed online with regular due dates and the first assignments in the new concept are as easy as opening their book and looking at the chart on page 123.  Once the book is opened, the chances of reading the material before the class just went up substantially.  Instead of seeing this technology as a block, how can we work with it and alongside all these distractions.   How tough are student distractions anyway?

Here a field study on this begins. Background to this: my sweet little relative started our household on this new online game.  Super simple.  Super addictive.  While I am playing with the humor of 10 and up's, my character games have the clever names of "It's elemental", "Sucrose" and "Formic."   While trying to reach out to this next generation and find out what daily habits and patterns they have, I am too sucked in and soon enough my clever character's are gobbled up by "Jumbo" and "Mars-Bro."  It is then so easy to start a new round.  Just one more round.

Upon sharing this addiction with my students, half the class expressed with a groan, they knew this game too.  The distraction's students have shared that have the biggest pull on them are in no particular order: Netflix Television Series, Phone App Games and Social Media Sites.  Technology has come to aid us and simultaneously seems to give us a nice dose of distractions as well.

Should we check-in the smart devices at the door or instead use them as an addition to our classrooms?  How can we turn the classroom into an active learning experience where students are looking for solutions to current world problems?  It is a great feeling in class to be curious about a question a discussion brought up and be able to "Ask Siri" what the answer to it is. 

Next up: addictive Chemistry games that bring the fun of learning those polyatomic names to the game front!  Gobble the polyatomic naming fun!