How Teachers Can Increase Kids’ Attention in the Classroom
by Robene Jane and Lea Waters
For more than a century, intelligence has been a key asset that teachers seek to develop in their students. Over the last two decades, we’ve also come to understand that helping students cultivate and manage their emotions is an important outcome of education.
In other words: IQ + EQ = successful learning.
In this post-pandemic world, the importance of a third ‘quotient’ has become vitally apparent, mainly through its noticeable decline these past 3 years. We’re talking about a student’s ‘focus quotient.’
According to a report on education by the World Economic Forum, an average of 50 days of in-person teaching was lost to school closures globally in 2020. Many teachers reading this will have experienced a number greater than 50 days. Research shows being away from campus severely affected learning for many students, leading to poorer knowledge retention and lower grades. When considering the ongoing challenges in education arising through the pandemic (cycling between online to in-person classes; using blended learning, distressed and distracted students), it is no wonder that fostering student attention has become a priority for teachers.
To add to our equation above: IQ + EQ + FQ = successful learning.
Teachers globally are trying to find ways to help their students have stronger focus and build their attentional capacities. However, this is no easy task.
In this article, we cover some ways teachers can improve kids’ attention in the classroom:
1. Get Moving: Use physical activities in the middle of a lesson
Insights from child psychiatrist Dr Dan Siegal, in The Whole-Brain Child, notes that a child’s "upstairs brain," which makes decisions and balances emotions, is constantly evolving until the mid-twenties. When your students are distracted, it could be because they are struggling with their ‘upstairs brains’— you can give them a chance to shift their emotional state through physical activities. Movement and exercise can help relieve tension, process emotions, and reduce boredom, allowing them to focus better. Rather than having a continuous lesson plan, give your students a break in the classroom and lead them through some quick stretching or jumping jacks. This grants your students an opportunity to reset their minds, improving their overall attention span.
2. Practice mindfulness and meditation
It’s not just action that helps refresh attention, stillness can also be a useful tool to reset the brain. Students practicing mindfulness and meditation can take a break from their studies and concentrate on themselves. A study from The Journal of Educational and Psychological Research notes that through the SEARCH positive education framework, teachers can support a student's well-being by fostering an awareness of their thoughts, emotions, and body states. This method can benefit students who face a significant, stressful shift back to in-person classes. Instead of focusing on their problems, older children can be encouraged to pay attention to their strengths and recent positive life events. Mindfulness can be guided through an app and can be done in as little as 2 minutes, therefore not taking time away from the important curriculum. An review article published by Professor Lea Waters (the second author on this blog) on the Educational Psychology Review found that repeating mindful practices over time has been shown to build up the brain’s attentional muscles.
3. Break down or change tasks
Children have shorter attention spans than adults — making it all the more difficult to complete lengthy tasks that require sustained focus on one thing. Teachers can break down a task into smaller elements that don’t require sustained concentration. Lea’s post “The Counterintuitive Secret to Improving Your Child's Attention Span” shows that the brain has two types of attention. Teachers can make the most of the two forms of engagement, with free-form attention serving as a “break” from more complex tasks while still keeping a child’s mind active. In the classroom setting, teachers can assign a set of questions and structure breaks between each answer. Breaks that involve reading, art, or even daydreaming can be used to help students rest. Through constructive rest, children can get back into tasks they need to concentrate on.
Even as adults, work can take a toll on our mental focus. Considering their young age, having breaks, providing opportunities to move, and also being mindful throughout children’s learning process can positively impact their attention in the classroom. Thus helping to build the IQ, EQ, and FQ.