Curbing Student Digital Distraction With Non-Traditional Teaching Strategies

Student use of mobile phones, laptop computers, and other digital devices for leisure purposes has become nearly omnipresent in college classrooms across the globe. The emergence of the digital distraction phenomenon has left many educators searching for strategies to curb the amount of habitual off-task behavior taking place in their classrooms. The chapter supplies educators with a menu of strategies to diminish the occurrence of student digital distraction in their classrooms. Specifically, the authors discuss evidence-based non-traditional strategies that can be applied to reduce student digital distraction in the traditional face-to-face setting, and they position the flipped classroom model as a viable approach for instructors who wish to curb student digital distraction while simultaneously boosting student engagement and learning. Finally, they discuss the importance of empowering students to take control over their digital device use and learning outcomes by training them to become autonomous, self-regulated learners