While higher education has recently undergone some major changes, in all spheres of our activity, at its heart is our learners and the learning environment, whether virtual or otherwise. Despite the advent of various technologies to support learning within and outside the classroom, most of our students still find themselves in ‘normal’ lecture theatres and classrooms, on campus. For some of us, those lecture theatres are pretty big, and it is not unusual to see around 1000 students in such a setting, although in such a venue, it is pretty much the case that we will not actually ‘see’ those in the rows at the very back (or even those in the front rows, if the lights are dimmed or the lighting is not that great). While there has been a movement away from faculty/lecturers being seen as the ‘sage on the stage’, in such lecture theatres we are certainly ‘on the stage’. If we choose to have 2-hour lectures, our students have to sit, often on very hard seats, for a very long time, however many breakout activities we ask them to do, or however many breaks we schedule into this timeframe. Even with the most charismatic, enthusiastic lecturer, the most engaging materials and the rest, and teaching what students regard as one of their favourite subjects, it is no easy task to ensure that students are as fully engaged as they need to be. So much learning is supported by various technologies these days, and most of us work in universities where lectures are recorded, as a matter of course. This allows for students to re-visit the lecture, later, as many times as they wish, which can be only a very good thing, and all the more so in classes where there are such large numbers of students, where acoustics, alone, make it difficult to hear what is being said, either by fellow students or by the lecturer. If the lecture is recorded, students may perhaps choose to not take notes in class, reasoning that they can re-visit the lecture later. Or, they are simply not note takers in the first place. Everyone learns differently, and each of us uses our own learning strategies, after all. Most notes are hand written, although with a generation so reliant on their smartphones, note taking is perhaps on the wane. However, it is probably reasonable to conclude that note taking is still fairly common and, say the authors of the first article, this may help to improve students’ attention during a lecture. Entitled ‘the provision of partial notes is not associated with improved student attention in lectures or subsequent understanding of the lecture material’ its authors Keitaro Machida, Michelle Chin and Katherine A Johnson, all from the University of Melbourne in Australia, as the title tells us, this is all about note taking. Their review of the literature covers the vital area of maintaining attention in class and not getting distracted. As they report, ‘vigilance decrement’ as it is called may well come into play around 20 minutes into the class, that this, this when focus and full attention can be lost, the mind wanders, fading still further as the lecture goes on. While they say that the timing of such ‘decrement’ is still not agreed, or even how or why it happens, having sat through long staff development sessions ourselves, often in the very same lecture theatres, however exciting the subject matter, it is near impossible to give it our full 769195 ALH0010.1177/1469787418769195Active Learning in Higher EducationEditorial editorial2018

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虽然高等教育最近发生了一些重大变化，但在我们活动的所有领域，其核心是我们的学习者和学习环境，无论是虚拟的还是其他的。尽管出现了各种支持课堂内外学习的技术，但我们的大多数学生仍然发现自己在校园里的“普通”演讲厅和教室里。对于我们中的一些人来说，那些演讲厅很大，在这样的环境中看到大约 1000 名学生并不罕见，尽管在这样的场地中，我们几乎不会真正“看到”教室里的学生。排在最后面（甚至前排，如果灯光变暗或照明不是那么好）。虽然教师/讲师被视为“舞台上的圣人”，但已经出现了一种趋势，在这样的演讲厅中，我们当然是“在舞台上”。如果我们选择进行 2 小时的讲座，我们的学生必须坐在非常硬的座位上很长一段时间，无论我们要求他们进行多少分组活动，或者无论我们在这个时间范围内安排多少休息时间。即使有最有魅力、最热情的讲师，最引人入胜的材料等等，并且教授学生认为是他们最喜欢的科目之一，但要确保学生像他们需要的那样充分参与也不是一件容易的事。如今，各种技术支持了如此多的学习，我们大多数人在录制讲座的大学工作，这是理所当然的。这允许学生在以后重新观看讲座，次数不限，这可能是一件非常好的事情，在有如此多学生的课堂上更是如此，仅靠声学就很难听到同学或讲师所说的话。如果讲座被录音，学生可能会选择不在课堂上做笔记，理由是他们可以稍后重新观看讲座。或者，他们根本就不是笔记记录者。每个人的学习方式都不一样，毕竟我们每个人都使用自己的学习策略。大多数笔记都是手写的，尽管一代人如此依赖智能手机，笔记记录可能正在减少。然而，可以合理地得出结论，记笔记仍然相当普遍，而且，第一篇文章的作者说，这可能有助于提高学生在课堂上的注意力。题为“提供部分笔记与提高学生在讲座中的注意力或随后对讲座材料的理解无关”，其作者 Keitaro Machida、Michelle Chin 和 Katherine A Johnson 均来自澳大利亚墨尔本大学，如标题所示，这都是关于记笔记的。他们对文献的回顾涵盖了在课堂上保持注意力和不被分心的重要领域。正如他们报告的那样，所谓的“警惕性降低”很可能会在上课 20 分钟左右开始发挥作用，当注意力和全神贯注可能会失去时，思绪会走神，随着讲座的进行而进一步减弱。虽然他们说这种“递减”的时间安排仍未达成一致，甚至还没有商定它是如何或为什么发生的，但我们自己已经参加了长时间的员工发展会议，