Simple Tips to Increase Students’ Attention Span

Students usually struggle to stay focused in class. You may relate to this because you either teach students or you once were one. But how long exactly are students expected to stay focused without lapses? We’ll be taking a look at how to improve student attention in the classroom.

Attention varies according to mood, topic, motivation and a ton of other factors. This is normal as students with different characters and behaviours are being taught in a classroom. So how can you keep all these different students focused during your lesson?  

Here are some tricks you may use in the classroom to keep your students attentive for longer periods

Motivate them:

You need to give them a reason to be attentive in your class other than “listening in class is important”. Tell them what they stand to gain from the lesson and appeal to their understanding of life by relating theoretical ideas in your topics to real life experiences.

Keep different learning styles in mind:

Remember that all the twenty something students in the class do not comprehend the same way. You have to present information that interests students in the visual, auditory, and other learning style categories.

Make the class atmosphere light:

Students like teachers that can make a joke every now and then. It helps reduce tension and is a good way to get those ‘sleepy heads’ back on track. It can also serve as time for short breaks.

Include practical activity:

To switch up the teaching methods, you can incorporate physical activities to engage the senses of the students. Let them see, touch, smell or hear materials that are directly applied to what they are learning. Exploration and fascination in real life materials helps them understand concepts better and keeps them more focused.

Break up tasks:

Tasks can be hard to focus on, especially when they have different components. instead of giving your students tasks that involve research, then calculation then presentation, you can give them one at a time so that they are not distracted by the complexity and the fear of failing.

Some students will always struggle with attention more than others. All it takes is a little more effort from teachers to help all your students with concentration.

Using a Student Management System like SAFSMS, teachers workload is lessened as most tasks are automated. This gives them more time to focus on the progress of their students, including working on strategies to help increase the attention span of  those lagging behind.