EP289 A practical guide to building students’ attention stamina and ability to focus

Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers

How long can you read a book without getting distracted? Do you swipe through TikToks or reels before they’re over because you’ve gotten impatient? Do you find it hard to just stream a TV show or movie without also looking at your phone or doing another activity at the same time?

Yep — the shortened attention span issue isn’t something unique to Gen Z.

It’s something that I think almost all of us in modern western culture have been impacted by…and there’s good reasons for that. In this episode, I’ll share:

• Some of the reasons why it’s difficult for us to concentrate and think deeply
• Why the ability to focus for extended periods will be like a superpower in the coming years
• A 3 step process you can teach students for redirecting their attention when they notice their minds wandering
• How to make intangible terms like “stay focused” easy for students to understand
• The 5 step classroom practice you can use regularly to help students build capacity for concentration over time
• The limits of the human ability to do focused work, and what valuable tasks students can do once they’ve maxed out concentration for the class period
• Cal Newport’s research on how to alternate periods of deep work and shallow work
• How–and why–to break the addiction to staying busy with low-level tasks and spend more time (on our own and with students) in deep work, focus, and concentration

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