Getting students to focus longer than a TikTok video is a bigger challenge now than ever before.
But there is a way.
It’s a five-step strategy that actually trains students to concentrate for extended periods of time. Applied daily, it will dramatically expand the time your students are able to work without losing focus.
The result is more time on task, better behavior, and greater academic improvement.
Here’s how it works:
1. Go Smaller
Teaching in greater detail is interesting to students. It causes them to pay better attention initially, but also has a way of drawing them deeper into the subject.
It’s one of the few predictable ways of engaging students in today’s jump-cut world.
Focus on bringing more texture/context/depth/color/grittiness to your lessons. The more specific you are, the more fascinating and memorable you’ll be.
2. Show the Basics
When you’re modeling for your students what you want them to do when you send them off to work independently, be sure to include the most basic actions. In other words, the things no one teaches.
Show them how to properly hold their pencil, for example, use a single thumb to open their laptop, or nod with satisfaction when they’re mentally ready to start working.
These little successes—small, easy hurdles to overcome—lead them to tackle the more difficult challenges with less hesitancy. They also help focus the mind before getting to the real work.
3. Check, Double Check
Go beyond a normal check for understanding and instead make your students prove to you they know precisely what to do to finish their work.
Cut every hurdle to success down as low as possible by answering every question, crossing every T, and preforming multiple checks of understanding before giving students the green light to work alone.
You, and they, must know that they don’t need your help doing the work. This is vital to their ability to focus without interruption.
4. Start Small
It’s worth reiterating: To train better focus, you’re number one goal is their success. You must prepare your students to sit silently and complete the work entirely on their own.
This means meeting your students where they are. If they have the focus of a fruit fly, then your independent practice time should initially be short.
Success is paramount and the key to their growth. So if you have to start with only five minutes of independent practice, so be it.
5. Push the Envelope
Like exercise, you must increase the load every day. If their work time was ten minutes the day before, make it 12 minutes. Add more required math problems, science questions, or paragraphs to their work.
Continue with detailed lessons and preparing them thoroughly for success, but adjust the length of time they must work. Do this daily. Push a little farther each day and you won’t recognize your class in six weeks.
Their ability to get lost in their work from day one to day 30 will be light-years better.
Easy Focus
Here at SCM, we leverage what we know will work based on human nature and classroom psychology.
The principle of extending work time a little each day—while maintaining your goal of success and full autonomy—is a slam-dunk guarantee.
Yes, it takes solid classroom management. (What doesn’t?)
It also takes highly detailed lessons, effective modeling, and double-checking for understanding. But it’s doable for any teacher.
As for your students, it’s life-changing.
PS – Check out this week’s YouTube videos:
1. When One Student Takes Over Your Classroom
2. Why Your Students Keep Testing Your Boundaries
3. Why Redirecting Misbehavior Makes It Worse
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