Attention span in calculus classes and yoga breaks

Abstract

Although the attention span among students has reduced in the age of technology and communication, some mathematics classes have a similar duration as decades ago. We have been making use of several strategies to try to mitigate this out-of-date approach, such as active learning methodologies like flipped learning. However, expository periods cannot be avoided, and as the difficulty level of concepts increases, the more difficult it is for a student to stay focused during an entire class. Our aim is to find the most appropriate pauses during classes, that maximize attention and effective learning. We found out that redirecting student’s attention to some non-related subject, which is simpler, relaxing and appealing, the overall classes’ effectiveness improved substantially. In this direction, we combine simple yoga stretches, breathing and mindfulness exercises with reflection about yoga related words and ideas, in order to deal simultaneously with several difficulties caused by long expositive classes. Within all the yoga related words and ideas, it is very important that the choices we make do not conflict with people’s beliefs and religions. Moreover, we can choose ideas that are not only relaxing and neutral, but whose reflection on them allows students to acquire strategies to better deal with their stressful lives. For example, the word “detachment”, often and wrongly confused with “indifference”, can trigger a reflection useful to cope with the common stress related to assessment. The awareness that, after doing our best in an exam, there is no way to further control the final result, can be liberating. We present in this article a list of the words and ideas we have used in classes. Together with an explanation of the most common misinterpretations about them, we propose ways of application to students’ lives. Finally, we describe in detail the yoga stretches, breathing and mindfulness exercises we have also applied during classes. It is our intention to provide teachers with sufficient information and confidence so that this strategy can be easily replicated. We have been implementing and trying to improve these pauses during the years in several mathematics courses in Higher Education. From these experiments, we have collected feedback from students and teachers that allowed us to accomplish the reflections we share in this article, with the potential to be reused in other contexts.