The Art of Keeping Kids Engaged in an Age of Distraction

Educators across the globe say they’re grappling with shortening student attention spans. In a recent study of kindergarten through second grade classrooms across the U.S., 75% of teachers said that students’ ability to focus has decreased since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Excessive screen time and overconsumption of fast-paced, short-form content (think: TikTok videos) are often noted as contributing factors, but some developmental experts have suggested that it’s not only students’ ability to focus that has eroded, but their willingness to do so. As a result, educators are stocking their teaching kits with a bevy of strategies to help students stay engaged in learning.

“The new word is ‘edutainment,’” Curtis Finch, superintendent of Arizona’s Deer Valley Unified School District told the Hechinger Report. “How can you make your lesson applicable, interactive? Teachers are going to have to be more engaging for students.”

Brain breaks, or short bursts of physical activity like jumping jacks, help students reset mid-lesson. Teachers are also breaking lessons into smaller chunks, reducing in-class screen time, and making instruction more interactive.

At McKinley STEAM in Toledo, Ohio, fifth graders struggling to retain the difference between the Earth’s “rotation” and its “revolution” around the sun learned by walking in a big circle that spun around their teacher. “Rotation is light and night, and it takes 24 hours,” they recited the next day. “Revolution is going around one year, 365 days and a quarter.”

In an eighth grade classroom, one teacher led students through a genetics lesson by demonstrating how to use various candies to determine which phenotypic traits would present on a marshmallow baby.

Computer science teacher Laurel Daniels said she not only begins each class with a group discussion, but she’s divided her 45-minute lecture block into smaller “microlessons” to boost student focus. It also enables her to quickly reintroduce concepts in a different format. 

The science behind these strategies is grounded in how memory actually works, says Emily Elliott, a psychology professor at Louisiana State University. Long-term retention requires repeated exposure over time — not cramming.

“The more times that you are exposed to something, you learn it, you have to try to remember it,” she said. “You practice retrieving it, and then you have a break. Then you do something else and come back and try again. That’s strengthening your neural network.”

But not every technique to increase student focus relies on mental stimulation. Kindergarteners at McKinley STEAM start the day with guided meditation followed by a series of deep breathing exercises and self-selected affirmations. The approach reinforces that they are capable of remaining attuned to learning — even during the tedious parts of the day. While learning should be fun, Elliott says, students must develop the stamina to push through when they’re bored.