Paying Attention - Getting your students to learn longer

by Heather Theijsmeijer

It seems as though every new generation of teachers is shocked to see how “poorly” the current generation of students pay attention. Whether it is taking the time to read instructions carefully, or even just sit and listen to a talk without fidgeting or dozing, many teachers quickly become exasperated with their students in class. Is this truly becoming more and more of a problem with the younger students? Have students genuinely changed their learning habits over time? Or are we just remembering our learning habits through rose-coloured glasses??

Certainly, by taking a look at how current educational television shows are geared toward younger students, we can get a glimpse into how the younger generation learns. Take Bill Nye: “The Science Guy,” for example. Personally, I find Bill Nye episodes hard to follow – quick cuts to different scenes, bright colours, yelling, many different characters, crazy camera angles and loud sound effects all tend to leave me with a headache.

However my high-school aged students love the show. It holds their attention, and repeats material in so many different ways (and at different volumes!) that they can easily absorb the content throughout the entire show. My chalk-and-talk lessons don’t seem to engage them nearly so much.

The immediate conclusion one might jump to, is that the current generation of students have shorter attention spans, particularly when it comes to visual or oral learning. Current post-secondary students have grown up having everything at their fingertips, thanks primarily to the pervasiveness of the Internet. An answer (though not necessarily the correct one) can be found to nearly any imaginable question within 30 seconds of typing a few choice words into a search engine. Students are not used to waiting for answers, be they answers which are eventually provided for them, or answers they need to discover themselves.

While the fact that student learning patterns are changing may be an easy argument for some, even before the age of the Internet, many adult learners have been known to have shorter attention spans than recognized by teachers. Studies have been done which show that the average adult attention span is only 15-20 minutes long. Considering that a typical lecture is 3-4 times this length, and regardless of the conditions in which our students grew up, no wonder many doze off or lose interest part way through a lesson!

It would seem we all need a little bit of Bill Nye-like stimulus in order to keep our students engaged and interested in our material. Apart from jumping up and down on the front lecture bench and yelling, however, there are a number of techniques you can use to hold the attention of your students throughout the class, particularly taking advantage of this 15-minute attention span.

• Break up your lecture into 15-20 minute mini-lectures, separated by either something active for your students to do (trying an example on their own, or reviewing a concept with the student beside them), OR by something completely different and off-topic (see below). These breaks only need to be 2-5 minutes long, in order to refresh the attention span before going back to the lecture topic.
• Most students recall the most information from the first 5 minutes of the lecture. Introduce your talk with the most important information, and then come back to those points throughout the talk. Repetition is an excellent way to reinforce concepts.
• When problem solving, use a scaffolded approach. Instead of asking students to simply come up with the answer, instruct them how to proceed with each step (determine this, then determine that, which will allow you to calculate this…). Throughout the lesson you can remove parts of the “scaffold” to help them become more independent once they know the correct method.
• Throw something completely random into your presentation: a joke, cartoon, video, newspaper article, photo, “Did You Know,” etc. It does not have to be related to your material! This activates their brain in a different way and helps them re-start their attention span.
• Present material in a variety of ways and repeat material using those different ways in a lecture – visual, oral, demonstration, video, clickers, etc. Get them to use different parts of their brain throughout the talk.
• Part way through the talk (ideally at around 20 minutes), review what has been discussed so far, perhaps by using one of the above approaches. This reinforces what has been learned as well as gets the students ready for a new attention span.
• Add a little variety to your lessons by not following the same outline every day. For example, don’t show a picture of your dog every day, 45 minutes into the lecture. Change the order of things to keep your lectures fresh.

Addressing the concept of shorter attention spans in your lectures will help both the Internet-dependent generation, as well as the average adult learners in your courses, including giving talks to peers at colloquia or conferences. For more information and other ideas on how to re-start the attention spans of your students, please read The “Change-Up” in Lectures, by Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish (1996), at http://www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9601/article1.htm  .