In-Class Focus and the Dunning-Kruger Effect
TL;DR
Often, you believe you are on-task and focused when you are not. You believe that you are using the resources of the space effectively, but you are not. This is the Dunning-Kruger effect applied to self-awareness and self-regulation.
In other words, you believe you are focused because you don’t know what focus feels like. You have to experience what it’s like to focus your entire self-selected group of friends on one task for a period to know what that feels like. You have to avoid social media for 30 minutes straight with the phone right next to you to know what that feels like.
You’ve had the phone taken away, or been told it has to be off. You’ve been silenced in class. But those are not choices. Your brain does not process them as choices; each one is filtered through your knowledge that it was not a choice that you made.
Practicing What It Feels Like, Then
Yesterday, you were given an assignment: to read the following post in class.
Today, October 8, you’ve been given the class period to write a response. This helps you to
- work on the habit of reading these posts, which form the foundation of a flipped classroom; and
- work on your in-class focus and use of feedback, which are the foundations of your learning.
There is always more to do in here, which is why “a desire to do more than just what is required” is part of the criteria for a GAP score of 8. Case in point:
These hubs address essential elements of your learning, not just your work in this makerspace. You can always ask questions and have discussions there. Today, for instance, you will be given a brief in-class lecture on this:
Ongoing Discussion: Dunning-Kruger Effects and Imposter Syndromes
Find time to read that post. Watch the video on the Dunning-Kruger effect. Look at the comments left by other students. We need to target your ability to self-assess. You have to get better at judging your own effort and output.
Here is that post’s first paragraph:
Discrepancies between a student’s self-assessment and their actual performance are common. It’s human nature to struggle with uncomfortable truths, and perhaps the most uncomfortable kind of truth is that we are not as skilled or knowledgeable as we thought. In fact, this phenomenon, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, happens for almost all of us at some point in our lives.
This is why internalizing the difference between sufficient and insufficient work is critical. The same is true of in-class focus and your use of feedback. It is uncomfortable to realize that you really don’t have the level of self-control and focus you should. You can’t improve without real self-awareness and amenability, though.
In other words, your struggle might be that you don’t know you’re off-task. You believe you’re focused, or just focused enough, for it to count. When someone else — your teacher, most of the time — tells you that you’re off-task, that clashes with what you believe. It’s hard to be self-critical.
I think the reason why is that you haven’t had much experience being focused, truly focused, when the choice is yours to make. You don’t have experience choosing to ignore your phone, for instance; you’ve always been forced to put it away. You have to make that choice yourself for it to have lasting impact.
Because there is always more to do in here, formally and informally, you can always practice being focused in class. You must listen to that uncomfortable feedback, however, that identifies when you aren’t focused.
Summer Reading
The form you should fill out for summer reading is here:
This Google Form, which was posted yesterday to Google Classroom, uses language from the background lessons on reading to get into your summer work. One goal is to make that summer work — really, your choices about that summer work — meaningful beyond the first few weeks of school.
This first form offers a chance for meaningful writing for those who read. It’s about added value; if you are able to answer these prompts, then you will have more evidence of the skills and traits that matter. If you cannot answer these prompts, that will not lower your profile. Instead, you will have a chance next week to add value through a different assignment.
What you write on this form is also powerfully helpful for teachers. It offers insight into BHS’s summer reading, both as a matter of policy and as a part of our study of literature. Be honest. This year is about growth.
I should be able to get a post up about the complete “summer reading” assignment — this is just part of it — tomorrow, when you have a day off. In the meantime, ask questions about any of this in the space below.
