This lesson is designed to provide students with data about why their attention levels may dip during class or studying, including recent research regarding the effects of digital distractions on concentration. The lesson invites students to reflect upon the reasons they may lose focus and/or concentration while in class or while studying, and provides a robust set of strategies students can use to anticipate and control for that loss of focus, incorporating several free-writes.
Learning Outcomes
On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Anticipate dips in attention and focus levels while studying or in class.
2. Diagnose and understand, based on scientific findings, when and why concentration wanes.
3. Develop tools to minimize "zoning out" and implement processes for working efficiently and productively throughout their legal careers.
Author(s)
Laura Mott
Laura is the Director of Academic Support for the 1L Evening Program at CUNY School of Law. Laura teaches Skills, 1L Lawyering, and has served as a bar mentor in CUNY’s Bar Support program since 2012. She has also taught legal writing and academic skills courses in the New York State Court System’s Legal Education Opportunity (LEO) Program, a summer program designed to prepare incoming law students from underserved communities for their first semester of law school. She has presented on best practices in designing academic support programs for part-time and evening students, and on issues related to associated general evening curriculum design and execution.
Laura’s scholarship on teaching methods and education science examines how varying chronobiological levels on both individual and group levels affect short- and long-term doctrinal absorption and analytic dexterity in law school learning contexts. Her environmental research uses various social justice lenses to propose better public participation and consultation processes for national and international environmental decision-making.
Laura holds a B.A. from Rutgers University, Douglass College, a J.D. from CUNY School of Law, and an LL.M cum laude in Environmental Law from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Prior to law school, she worked in archaeology and cultural resource management.
Director of Academic SupportCity University of New York Law School