Improve Students' Concentration in Class

Students learn best when they are paying attention to what they are learning.

If a student is not very focused, he or she can learn little or nothing at all.

It is impossible to plan lessons where you take into consideration students who are not focused at all. While your BED studies or PGCE will teach you that you have to cater to different students when planning your lessons, real-life classroom experience teaches you how to deal with students who are not paying attention.

Perhaps all you need to do is be more inventive in the way that you plan your lessons so that you can capture the attention of your students. We will give you some tips to make your lessons more engaging. If you captivate your students, you will have far more focused learners in your classroom.

Help Students to Concentrate

You cannot expect to get your students to concentrate if you are not well prepared for the lesson that you are giving. You need to come into the classroom and own the classroom. While your educational training will teach you to choose resources wisely when you plan your lessons, it can be difficult knowing which resources to choose.

The resources that you choose to use should be such that they can lead to engaging lessons. You also need to look carefully at your timetable. On days when you have 2 hour long periods, make sure to incorporate various resources and tools to keep students motivated to learn.

In every lesson, you need to make sure that:

• You are encouraging students to participate and allowing them to engage with the content being taught
• The resources you choose to use tie in well with the lesson objectives that you need to meet
• You get students to feel like they’re progressing and meeting learning objectives
• Time seems to slip away so fast because both the teacher and student is enjoying the lesson
• Lessons take place in a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning

Having an ideal lesson is difficult, however, with the right amount of planning and organisational skills, you can have a successful lesson or many successful lessons.

Having said that, always ensure that your lessons are varied. There are many ways that you can teach something so make sure to use all the methods you possibly can to make lessons fun.

Don't be afraid to play learning games, create opportunities for group work and allow students to take notes. Not every concept that you need to teach can be made fun and interactive but you must try your best to make even the more boring topics fun.

Teachers must speak to other teachers. You know the famous saying:

"Many hands make light work." - John Heywood

If there is a certain lesson that you are struggling to make fun, perhaps there are other teachers who can help you understand how to do this. When teachers share tips, tricks, and resources, lots of time and effort can be saved.

Other Ways to Get Students to Concentrate in Class

There are many ways to teach a certain topic in an engaging way.  We advise that you are firm and constantly work on disciplining your learners so that you can have productive lessons with students who are fully concentrating.

For newer teachers, you may have realised that digital multimedia resources are excellent tools to grab the attention of the newer generation of learners.

Make your class more interactive by incorporating:

• PowerPoint slides that you convert into videos that can be watched by your students over again
• Computer games (this works well in private schools that have computer labs)
• Use video creation tools like Powtoons
• Create online interactive quizzes that your students can do in class or for homework
• Whiteboard or Smartboard usage that is interactive
• Audio resources (songs, speeches, stories, etc.)
• Video resources (films, videos, documentaries, etc.

Be as innovative as you like. To ensure that your students remember particular topics, turn your PowerPoint slides into videos. Create a Dropbox in which you can share videos with your learners so that they can re-watch these videos at their own time.

PowerPoint is still an effective tool as you can make every slide engaging and fun. Use animations to make more of an impact.

Including screen time during your lessons work as students see getting to work on their computers as a reward. That is why they will be more enthusiastic to complete an online quiz or activity after  a lesson. Some students learn by doing, so allow them to practice what they have learnt in the form of Edpuzzle interactive videos or by using a quiz creation platform called Quizizz.

Feel free to go with resources that you are most comfortable with, however, don't get stuck in a rut in terms of your teaching methods. Always look for creative ways to teach.

Learn all about how to earn your students' respect.

Improve Concentration in Class with Fun Digital Resources

Many of the newer private schools have seen how they can utilie technology and technological tools to their advantage. That is why there is so many private schools that have taken a keen interest in making computer-related learning part and parcel of the learning journey. If you are teaching in a school that advocates the use of technological resources, do not shy away from using these resources.

Younger students (like foundation phase students) may need some help finding their way around certain online resources and require much more monitoring should you be using digital resources in the classroom.

To be a teacher who is able to captivate his or her students in today's times, you ought to stay abreast of the developments in educational resources.

Tools like Teach Your Monster How to Read and Reading Eggs are excellent online tools to get children who hate reading interested in reading.

You can still teach according to the "traditional" teaching method, however, there is no reason why you can't modernise the way you teach at the same time. Meeting learners halfway in terms of catering for their interest is an effective strategy to get learners to focus more in class.

Strategies to Help Students Focus in the Classroom

Try to make your lessons more enjoyable and engaging for your students.

“Your example, even more than words, will be an eloquent lesson to the world.” - Madeleine Sophie Barat

There is no tried and tested recipe on how to get students to focus but you can set an example for other teachers to emulate.  You can incorporate what children enjoy the most into your lessons-fun.

Get children moving. Children tend to get frustrated sitting still for many hours so allow them to stand and recite their timetables. Play games like musical chair where students lose their seats if they get Natural Science questions wrong. If you are a Natural Science teacher, incorporate experimentation into your lessons.

Create innovative learning games that children can play in small groups and use these games year after year. Tap into the minds of your children and explore what interests them and what is popular for them.

If they are into solving Rubik's cubes, reward learners who solve mental maths exercises in the fastest time with no mistakes by allowing them to get time during class to solve the Rubik cube.

Speak to kids at their level from time to time. Engage in discussions with them and allow them to answer and steer the discussion every now and again. You will see that younger learners like to feel part of the lesson. Simple things like allowing students to complete a mathematics sum on the board is sure enough to get them to be more excited about the lesson.

While being modern in your teaching approach can yield positive results, don't underestimate the value of good old fashion traditional resources.

Worksheets which are busy and colourful can still have a positive impact and catch children's' attention.  You would be surprised to see how much children enjoy solving crossword puzzles and doing simple word searches. Create parts of speech crosswords to get your learners clued up on the different parts of speech.  You can even get students to familiarize themselves with the spelling of the different figures of speech by making them do a figures of speech word search.

You can be as innovative as you like in the way you create your lessons. There is absolutely no limitation on how many resources you can use to teach a concept. However, always make sure that you are meeting the curriculum requirements for your specific subject as stipulated in the CAPS document.

Now that you have been guided as to how to spruce up your lessons and make them fun for your students, look for some other helpful articles.

In fact, why not read all about how you should dress as a teacher as well?