Between Brent Coker and John Seely Brown, it seems to me that there is increasing evidence to support the use of “sprinting” when teaching and or learning. When people tinker, they do so in short sprints – things are adjusted and tested for a short spell, then another problem is addressed before returning to the first problem. WILB suggests that inline distractions are healthy and can help increase productivity – leading credibility to the use of microlectures, mini games and the like.
While this might not be the best way to get really deep into a given topic, it is certainly something to think about when one is trying to get students into a new topic – presenting small interesting bits with short breaks as opposed to large homogenious chunks will likely work better for both the instructor and the student.
As students become engaged, the chips can likely become chunks (all things being relative of course), but they should likely retain those “interesting shapes” to keep students going. Instructors might even want to encourage or suggest in some manner “useful distractions” as students get deeper into a topic.
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