Every teacher has been there. You plan the perfect lesson which includes differentiated tasks, supportive scaffolds, collaborative learning, and an extension for early finishers. When the students arrive to class, you pour out the best of who you are. But no matter how precise your instruction is, the students just don’t seem to get it. This is a common occurrence I’m encountering with learners. After much observation and analysis of student behavior, I’ve noticed that their attention spans are short.
One day, I decided to really hone in on this observation of mine and see if I was being too critical, or if I was correct. In a classroom, a 13-year-old student asked for my help. I immediately began assisting; after about 15 seconds in, I asked her to simply repeat the words I had just spoken – she couldn’t. She was present, she appeared to be attentive, but she couldn’t repeat anything I had just said. In another instance, I instructed a class to sit and focus on a clarifying point I had to demonstrate. Again, after about 15 seconds in, I paused and asked a student to repeat the words I had just spoken. Just like the previous encounter I shared, this student could not recall a single word I had spoken. Actually, I proceeded to ask a few other students to repeat what I had spoken, and they could not repeat it either. Eventually, I did find a couple of students who seemed to be listening, as they were able to repeat the information that had been shared. After experiencing this disconnection between providing instruction to learners and them receiving it, I began to share my experience and ask other educators to share how common this occurrence is. Apparently, it’s very common amongst middle schoolers. This made me ponder.
Many adults blame the short attention spans of middle school learners on technology. Frankly, there is research that supports those thoughts. For example, a cross-sectional survey found that among 528 participants, short form video media, such as those we see on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube Shorts, was greatly connected with inattentive conduct.1 Anyone who is knowledgeable about adolescent brain development will blame the lack of attentiveness on frontal lobe development. This continuous development impacts decision making, ability to focus, planning, and more.2 I believe the short spans of focus is a result of both matters.
So how do we fix it? There are different strategies educators, parents, and supportive stakeholders can use to help adolescent learners extend their focus, but I’m going to share one strategy here: Game Play. Here are a list of games and activities so many of us grew up with; we thought we were just having fun, but we were simultaneously building our attentiveness and strengthening our controlled cognitive responses.
- Simon Says: This game challenges players to listen intensively and only following what “Simon Says”. This game can help students focus instruction and not respond to irrelevant distractions that may occur around them.
- Pattern Games: Try displaying a patter of some sort (colors, shapes, numbers, words, anything) for so many seconds, then remove the display and challenge students to record the patter on paper or an individual white board. You can make this even more fun by rewarding the first student with the correct pattern with a prize. This activity can help students boost their cognitive stamina.
- Bop-it: Remember this? It’s an audio game toy with a button and a couple of other fidgeting parts. Players only interact with the parts the toy instructs them to maneuver. The directives start slowly, but pick up speed as time goes on. The players goal is to simply keep the game going as long as they can. Once their fail to follow the directive accurately, the game ends. You can even put students in small group and have them play the team version of the game. In the team version, players will be instructed to “pass it”. This game is a great way for students to extend their mental endurance in a fun and engaging way.
- Strategy Games: Have you ever played chess or checkers? Strategy games such as this challenge students to think and consider the effects of their actions, because you have to always consider how your opponent will respond to your move in strategy games.
1 Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot University, Nakhon Nayok, Thailand, Short‐Form Video Media Use Is Associated With Greater Inattentive Symptoms in Thai School‐Age Children: Insights From a Cross‐Sectional Survey, (2025 Jul 7)
2 Sarah B. Johnson, Robert W. Blum, Jay N Giedd, Adolescent Maturity and the Brain: The Promise and Pitfalls of Neuroscience Research in Adolescent Health Policy, (2009, Sept)
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