THINK - PAIR - SHARE

THINK

• • Have students take 2 minutes to identify distractions that may be causing difficulties in academic performance. Challenge them to come up with as many possible distractions as they can. In the prompt for this reflection you could discuss things that would be considered distractions. For example, distractions could be physical objects (phone, cat, dog, television, video games, parents, significant other, roommates, etc,) or physiological/psychological states (hungry, tired, upset, anxious, ill, unmotivated).

PAIR

• • Get with a small group or in pairs and compare distractions (what do you have in common, what’s different). Pick 3-5 distractions and come up with a solution to the distraction.

SHARE

• • Have students share their solutions for common distractions. This could be verbally, on a whiteboard, on a padlet, or other shareable technology.

PLAN

Encourage students to pick something they can use to mitigate distractions. 

FOLLOW UP

Let students know that you will follow up with their solution in a week. When you follow up with students, give them space to continue to discuss distractions with their peers. 

Below are a list of resources that you can present to your students about distractions (please note that this list is not comprehensive and not all resources have been tested) :

• https://www.proginosko.com/leechblock/ - Free

Browser app that lets you customize time restrictions for websites

• https://focusme.com/get-it-now/ - Subscription Based. Works with browsers

• How I Tricked My Brain To Like Doing Hard Things (dopamine detox): Video about the importance of helping yourself be distraction free and weaning yourself off of dopamine inducing things like video games and phone use.

• Mindful Browsing: A free extension for Chrome that interrupts you when you go to certain websites. Customizable.