Classroom Engagement Strategies That Win Back Attention

Vicki Davis (00:00): How short are attention spans now? I feel like it’s dropped a lot since I started teaching. Can one dot on a student paper teach the whole class? And you’re clear on what you’re teaching, but are the kids with you? Our guest today has one question that we’ll tell you.

Today we’re talking about attention and why kids drift even when we’re teaching our hearts out. The fix isn’t performing more. We can capture their attention. Let’s focus on how with Fab Idea Friday, episode 1015.

Announcer (00:37): This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis (00:41): Today we’re talking with Dr. Michael McDowell. He’s an 18-year public school veteran who served as a classroom teacher, a principal, and a superintendent, and whose district earned a National Blue Ribbon during COVID for student performance and wellbeing.

Michael is now the co-founder of Hinge Education and author of a new book called The Attention Gap. So we’re going to talk about why our students’ ability to focus is fracturing and what he calls interval instruction, a brain-friendly approach that any K-12 teacher can use tomorrow morning.

Michael, in that 18 years, what did you see in classrooms that made you think we have an attention problem that we’re not naming?

Why do students get bored and frustrated during lessons?

Michael McDowell (01:28): I think, Vicki, in classrooms, both teaching math and science, and then also as a principal and as an administrator, I just kept seeing students were getting fatigued. They were getting bored. They were getting frustrated. I saw teachers getting bored. I saw teachers getting frustrated.

And I think that it had a lot to do with the way that we think about a lesson sequence. When we think about that gradual release of responsibility and kind of chunk things into thirds, where we’re like a third of the I do and a third of the we do and a third of the you do.

And I just think that I think our batteries get worn down. And I think there’s some pretty substantial research behind that. And I think we need to look at exercise science and a lot of the science that have come from the University of California Irvine, like Gloria Mark’s work, and say, maybe we need to rethink how we kind of chunk a lesson.

How long is a student’s attention span now?

Vicki Davis (02:09): I was telling somebody the other day, in my 24 years of teaching, I remember when I first started, I went through a class and they said, you know, your students have an attention span of about seven and a half minutes. So every eight minutes you need to change up, right? And then it was three minutes. Okay, so just recently I read the average attention span is somewhere around 45 seconds.

Michael McDowell (02:31): Yep.

Vicki Davis (02:31): Okay, so does this have anything to do with it, or are we just wrong to begin with?

Michael McDowell (02:37): Gloria Mark’s work showed that it’s right around what you said, Vicki. And there’s been some pretty interesting research that was done in college where they said, I think what we can do is we can shift the focus a bit and recharge that battery. And that to me is where we talk about intervals.

So I think for me, it’s about, we look at this and we say, okay, we know that attention is somewhat drifting. So maybe it was eight minutes. I think from what I saw in the research, it was probably hovering between two and a half to three minutes. And then that…

Vicki Davis (03:03): Okay.

Michael McDowell (03:03): …attention goes somewhere else. That attention either goes to boredom, frustration, or it needs something to recharge. And we have to find some kind of flow between that recharge that the brain needs, and then doing some of that heavy lifting that we, you know, we want to do with reading, writing, and talking.

Do teachers have to be more entertaining to keep students engaged?

Vicki Davis (03:18): Okay, so what are you recommending that we do? Am I going to have to, like, dance in front of the classroom and…

Michael McDowell (03:23): Yeah.

Vicki Davis (03:23): …swing for the rafters? Like, what do I do as a teacher? Because it seems like so much, like, it’s hard for me to change up my lesson every eight minutes. What are we going to do here?

Michael McDowell (03:32): Well, I don’t think it’s about us having to do more. I actually think it’s about having students do a little bit different.

What does “building the learner” mean in the classroom?

And I think that we can really lay out the attention. We’re kind of in two buckets. One bucket I would call is building the learner. So this is helping students with ideas around clarity.

So I like to use the fundamental question, like, as you’re doing great things as a teacher, are kids with you? I know you’re clear as a teacher. Are the kids clear? Are they like, yeah, that’s what we’re learning? Or are they seeing feedback not about the ideas, is what we want them to think about, but are they thinking about their identity? Like, I’m not great at math. Or are they assessment capable? Meaning, do they know where they’re going, where they are, what’s next? All of those things actually recharge the battery. This is building that learner.

And I think if we do practices around that for a few minutes, I think it recharges. Now we do this sometimes in advisory. We do some of this in the beginning of a lesson or at the end of a lesson. But my argument would be we need to weave that into a lesson.

So we might do something pretty substantial in what I would call building the learning. So this would be reading, writing, and talking, right? All the stuff we do in our classrooms. But what we’re going to do is do that for a few minutes and then shift that and say, you know what, let’s step back. Where are we going? Where are we? What’s next?

Little tiny practices where we just get the flow right, as opposed to thinking, all right, for the next 15 minutes, we’re gonna go hard and we’re gonna do this. And not having teachers think, I’ve gotta be more engaging, I have to be more performative. I think if we just shift the flow a little bit around building the learner and building the learning, I think that we’re actually gonna see students be a little bit more with us.

Vicki Davis (05:03): So you’re a math teacher, right?

Michael McDowell (05:05): Math and science.

Vicki Davis (05:05): Just take a typical math science lesson, whichever one you wanna pick. What would that look like in a 50-minute class period when you were teaching something? Like, could you give us kind of an example?

Should I start class with a quick ungraded quiz?

Michael McDowell (05:17): Yeah, so the first thing I would probably do in a class is I would start with just a little bit of quizzing. I think quizzing is a really great thing for us to help with making sure that there’s retention, and I think that drains the battery, right? Students are going like, quizzing, this is tough. Now, I wouldn’t put that for a grade, but a quick quiz, do a couple little flash cards. Just make sure, like, hey, remember we did math yesterday, maybe two to three minutes. As soon as I do that, I’m going to move to an activity.

What is the silent protocol for teaching math?

I often like to use a protocol called the silent protocol, where I say to students, okay, I’m going to show some math, but I’m not going to talk. You’re going to watch me, and then I just want to see if you can identify what I just did. So you don’t have to worry about the math. You don’t have to think about the math. You just have to look at what I’m doing and then say, all right, I think he just did that.

So today I was doing a problem with decimals, and I said, don’t worry about the math right now. Just watch me as I do the math, and then I’m going to have you turn to the person next to you as quick as you can and say, what did I just do? That actually recharges the battery.

So students are trying to determine, like, did he just do that? I think he just did that. Let’s quickly talk to each other. It’s like, okay, that was the divisor, that was the dividend. And then I say, okay, what’d you think? And then I’m like, here’s what I actually did. And so that’s building clarity, or co-constructing clarity, for two to three minutes. And I wasn’t doing a direct model right there, but to me, in two to three minutes, that’s just getting them back to like, okay, that’s what I need to be thinking about. But I’m not pushing them into the actual content.

Then I might move into a direct model. So again, that’s gonna be that, okay, it’s highly challenging, but highly engaging. That battery’s starting to drain a little bit. But here’s the key, Vicki: when I do a direct model, it’s gonna be short and sharp. It’s only gonna be a couple minutes. I’m not doing a Ferris Bueller lecture. It’s gonna be, I’m gonna ask them what do they know, what do they need to know, and say to the students, I’m gonna show this to you a couple times really quickly. I want you to watch through this, and then each time I’m gonna ask you, what do you know, what do you need to know? So they’re heavily involved.

But this time what I’m gonna do is something called dots. And when I do a dot, I’m gonna show them a problem and say, hey, this is something that students worked on in another class. I put a dot somewhere on their work. All you have to figure out is, does that dot mean they did something really well or something they need to correct? This is back to that building the learner, kind of recharges for them. And they’re like, this is what I need to do.

It’s that interval of highly challenging, building that learning, and then going back down into building the learner, and that kind of shift allows them to maintain the type of attention I think that we want. And I’m putting a little bit more work on the students. It’s not all on me in that clarity work. Instead of me telling them all the stuff, I’m like, what do you think I just did? I’m still showing them, or the dots, being like, this is important, but I’m not telling you whether it’s right or wrong. Let’s see if you can figure that out. Students think of it as a game, but really it’s just really high-impact practices.

What teacher habits make students lose attention?

Vicki Davis (07:51): So what do you think the most common thing that we as teachers do, maybe unintentionally, we have the best of intentions, right? That actually widens that attention gap rather than closes it, like you’re describing.

Michael McDowell (08:03): We are so compelled to rescue. I think when we see someone struggle, we want to help them. And I think what we do is we double down in explanation. We double down in scaffolding. We double down and, let me show this to you a few more times, as opposed to, let me show you a particular practice. I’m going to do it a couple of times quickly. And what I want you to do is, I don’t need you to know it all right now, but I need you to experience what I’m doing.

To me, it’s not whether they understand the content, but are they clear? Do they understand what I’ve done? And I think sometimes it’s that shift of over-scaffolding, and then also that idea of the work around, are kids clear, the ideas around, are they assessment capable? So for me, I think of that as like a learning GPS, like, do you know where you’re going? Do you know where you are? Do you know what’s next?

Because I found, Vicki, that when I taught math, the first half of my class was teaching and the second half ended up being tutoring. But I’m not a tutor, I’m a teacher, and I’m tutoring 31 students. In the first half I was teaching, and I think that is because I did a long lecture, a long inquiry, and I didn’t weave in some of those things, like, everybody stop, let’s look out. Where are we going with this? Where do we think we are? It’s that pivot between building a learner and building learning, not weaving it in on quick enough intervals. And I think sometimes that gets students into boredom and frustration.

Vicki Davis (09:17): Somebody who’s listening to you this moment, and they’re like, I want something to try tomorrow right when I walk into class. Is there an easy win, something you’ve already described or something else they could do, that’s an easy way to go, I better buy this book because that worked?

Michael McDowell (09:35): Vicki, if there are teachers that are listening right now, and let’s say they’re teaching math or they’re teaching something procedural, I would try that silent protocol. Just go in tomorrow and say to the students, I’m going to show you what success looks like, but I’m not going to talk. And all I want you to do is see if you can identify what I’m doing. And then each time I show you, I’m going to say, what do you think I did? Turn and talk, as quick as you can, 13 seconds. Let’s come back. What do you think I just did? And then show them, here’s what I actually did.

I think what teachers will see is they’re like, wow, they’re engaged. Wow, they were so focused, and they were trying…

Vicki Davis (10:06): That’s great.

How do you use a dot on student work to teach the whole class?

Michael McDowell (10:08): …to think about, like, what did he do? What did he do? Or take a piece of work. Like, so if you’re in an English class, take a piece of work tomorrow when the students come in. Put that work up on the screen, put a green dot on that work, and say that green dot either means someone did something really well or something we need to correct. Let’s see if we can figure this out as a class. To me, that’s going to bring attention up, because those are the types of activities that really build the learner.

I think of it like an athlete, being a great sportsman and being great at a game. Being a great sportsman is being able to recognize, like, the people in the field and who I’m working with, and being that great athlete is knowing all the techniques. That silent protocol and that dot, to me, is like becoming a better sportsman. Like, this is what helps us become better. And we just want to weave that in a few times within a lesson. Give it a go. See what happens.

Vicki Davis (10:52): Yeah.

Michael McDowell (10:53): And if that works, maybe just stick with those for a while.

Vicki Davis (10:55): I love the dot, because it’s like solving a mystery. I’ve had kids find problems or mistakes, but I’ve never really thought about having them find something awesome. And that’s really cool, because it could be either.

So we’ve been talking with Dr. Michael McDowell. The book is The Attention Gap. Thanks for coming on the show, Michael.

Announcer (11:13): Thank you for tuning in to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Join us here every weekday and subscribe to the Classroom Matters newsletter. See you later, educator.