Nancy,
To demonstrate the attentional resource differences between novices and
experts I do the following demo:
Materials needed: 3 soft balls for juggling (tennis balls work)
1. Ask for a volunteer who can juggle.
2. As the volunteer juggles ask him/her questions, begin with easy questions
(e.g., 2+2, Who was the first president of USA), then increase the difficulty
of the questions.
3. Next ask for a volunteer who has never juggled.
4. Repeat step 2 with the new volunteer as she/he juggles (or attempts to)
the three balls, asking questions of increasing difficultly.
5. Discuss with class contrast between attentional resources of experts and
novices, relate to development of expertise (most cognitive & Ed psych texts
and I believe the cog. chapter in intro discuss development of expertise).
This has always been a successful and fun learning demo. The contrast
between the expert juggler and the novice in answering the questions is
dramatic; the expert's juggling is interrupted only by very difficult
questions, and the novice cannot answer even the simplest questions while
juggling.
In large classes (> or = 30) there has always been a person who has juggled
at least a little (I don't, so I cannot be the expert), but just in case
there aren't any jugglers of any level of expertise (it just takes a little
for this demo) I bring a tennis racket. With the tennis racket and ball I do
exactly the same demo, except I ask for a tennis player volunteer. The task
is to bounce a tennis ball against the racket in the air continuously as
taught in beginning tennis classes to learn control. This I can do, but I
have ALWAYS had a student in the expert division for this task. The
volunteer, of course, has never held a tennis racket--so far there has always
been one of those as well.
Good luck, and please let us know what you did and how it turned out.
Marty Brown
Department of Teaching and Learning
Memorial Hall Room 310
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0313
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (summer)
In a message dated 8/11/99 10:19:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
<< Hi folks wherever you are:
I hope that my voice won't echo futilely into the summer silence here.
I was wondering if anyone on the list had a demonstration of the workings of
attentional processes and rescues that could be done without too much
difficulty in a classroom. What I mean is this: an example that Zimbardo
uses in the Discovering Psychology series is the difference between walking
along and talking to a friend under ordinary circumstances, and walking
along
and talking to a friend while trying to avoid stepping in puddles because
it's raining - it becomes much more difficult to concentrate on the
conversation. I want something that I can have the students do in class
that
duplicates the effects of this.
Also, I posed a question about reading milestones about a month ago, and I
wanted to see if anyone had a list of these from 2 - 6 years of age.
Thanks so much. Looking forward to a resurgence of list activity soon.
Nancy J. Melucci
El Camino College
Behavioral and Social Sciences
Utility Infielder
"That movie has warped my fragile little mind."
E. Cartman
