Grappling with Technology in Middle School, and Winning (No, Really) - The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning

When I started as a Math teacher at St Andrew’s in 2017, there was an established norm that the sixth and seventh-grade students who brought phones to school were not allowed to access or use them during the day. These students turned in their phones during the morning Advisory Period and would retrieve them before they went home. This policy of collecting phones seemed quite cutting edge back then, compared to how many more schools have cell phone restriction policies today. Eighth graders had the privilege of keeping their phones; however, they needed to be out of sight—in a student’s book bag or pocket. If an eighth grader had their phone out without permission, it could be confiscated and returned at the end of the day. Sometimes, students needed to use their phones and could do so with a teacher’s permission.

A policy shift happened in 2018. All Middle School students would turn in their cell phones at the beginning of the day. The rationale was based on observation and research. Even when eighth-grade students had their phones out of sight, when the devices received notifications, they distracted the owner and others within earshot. As a school with a Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, we explored research on the distractibility of cell phones even when they might not be used but remained on a person’s body or in earshot. “Cell phone notifications are designed to draw attention to the incoming information and, therefore, away from the current task. When focusing on one task, like reading a book, and a cell phone chirps, we switch our attention to a new task, checking the cell phone. We tend to call situations like these “multitasking” when we are, in fact, task switching…The use of cell phones, and other media devices like laptops and tablets, during class or when studying is especially problematic because the resulting task switching can disrupt attention and, therefore, the learning process.” .

I saw this firsthand in my class. A student was following our policy of keeping their phone in their pocket. They then received a notification and their cell phone vibrated. If we think about how the brain works, this probably created a dopamine boost in their brain and an immediate urge to check their phone. Their attention is immediately switched away from the lesson. The disruption to their learning gets even larger, because it takes a while to get back to task—the student’s mind is likely to wander, and they are likely to have thoughts not related to the lesson even if they do not check their phone.

Students are not only distracted by the pull of the phone but also by a fear of missing out on what might be happening on their phone and in their feeds. The administration understood the distraction that having a cell phone, even in a pocket or backpack, posed to students— interrupting their learning with alerts through vibrations from texts or phone calls and/or whatever apps the students used, and interrupting their learning even by its mere presence.

During Covid and social distancing, the rules were relaxed, and middle school students were allowed to keep their phones with them. However, the phones needed to be out of sight. The same distractions occurred. Students were tempted to use their phones when teachers were not looking and to check their notifications when the phones buzzed in class. “Can I go to the bathroom?” requests also increased. These distractions made teaching and learning much harder for everyone. When we returned to our pre-COVID practice, we started collecting student phones again, and there was a marked improvement in student attention and face-to-face engagement during the school day.

In 2019, I became the Middle school Dean of Students, while still teaching Math. As a teacher and school leader, I think a lot about the Middle School brain and how the use of technologies shapes it during one of the most dynamic, brain-changing times in a student’s life, spurred as it is by puberty and their school and life experiences. Like many, I have read The Anxious Generation, a book that has done more than any other to change cell phone policy in schools and districts throughout the United States.

While our Middle School students do not have access to their phones during the school day, they each have a computer that they use as a learning tool via our one-to-one laptop program. Professor Melina R. Uncapher, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of California San Francisco and the Executive Director and co-founder of The Institute for Applied Neuroscience writes, “… there are now initial global efforts to convene scientists researching the relationships between technology use and academic, psychosocial, cognitive, and neural outcomes, in order to generate national research agendas and recommendations regarding what constitutes a healthy technology diet (e.g. the 2015 National Academy of Sciences Sackler conference on Digital Media and Developing Minds, and the 2016 Society for Research in Children’s Development conference on Technology and Media in Children’s Development)”.

In my role as an administrator and as a math teacher, I am grappling with the dichotomy of using technology for learning purposes and protecting our students from the distractions that come with using technology. The SAMR framework (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) provides some good guidance to consider when technology is a mere substitute for more traditional teaching and learning strategies versus technology augmenting, modifying or replacing. As an example, in 2024, Middle School Math teachers started using an online tool called Delta Math (www.deltamath.com) to assign, augment, and personalize homework. We know from research the value of immediate feedback, worked examples, and multiple modality instruction, which are all integrated into this software. The results that I see as a math teacher and the feedback students provide highlight how this technology augments learning in ways that more traditional strategies could not. This tool gives students immediate feedback on problems they are trying to complete, and comes with video tutorials and worked-out problems for them to use to help guide their studying. This is an amazing tool that helps students do better in math, feel more confident, and be more independent. Reasons like this are why I collaborate with the CTTL team to look at what the research on teaching and learning says about topics like handwritten versus digital note-taking, reading from printed versus online texts, or even the benefits of students writing down their homework in an assignment book versus checking what is due on Canvas, our school’s Learning Management System (LMS).

When I started teaching Math in 2000, high tech meant a three-ring binder, a TI-85 calculator, and maybe an overhead projector. Today, technology is part of the everyday life of school faculty, staff, and students. However, screen time for the Middle School student remains a challenge when we ask them to use their laptops during the school day and for at least part of their homework at night.

When we put students online at home to complete an assignment, conduct research, or to design and create, we are also presenting them with the opportunity to task switch, to explore social media, and be distracted by a million shiny possibilities. So I again ask myself, “When can technology reinforce, in a novel, personalized or responsive way? Or when can technology extend learning in ways that more traditional teaching and learning strategies cannot?” I am continuing to shift my practices as a Math teacher, thinking of ways to use Delta Math more as a classwork tool than as a homework tool, so that my students can get immediate feedback from both the software as well as from a human teacher. As a Middle School administrator, I am thinking of ways to guide my colleagues to analyze how their students use technology in and outside of the classroom in ways that are informed by research. I am also asking students and parents for their perspectives of what’s working and what’s not working with regards to the academic achievement, social and emotional development, and wellbeing of each student. Now, what to do about AI?