Teaching tip: Pace your teaching with students' attention
While attention spans vary between individuals, a useful rule of thumb is to focus on presenting new information in roughly eight-minute "chunks." Students under age eight may benefit from even shorter chunks of lessons and learning activities. Here are five other strategies for keeping students' attention focused on learning:
Advertisers use these same strategies to grab consumers' attention, so you might find inspiration for ways to adapt them to your lessons in a TV ad or on the side of a city bus! Keep this in mind as you guide students to improve their selective attention: The first step toward learning is paying attention.
SOURCE:
Wilson, D. & Conyers, M. (2015, January 6). Strategies for Getting and Keeping the Brain’s Attention. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/strategies-getting-keeping-brains-attention-donna-wilson-marcus-conyers