Developing Focus1

Developing Focus: Improving Concentration through Literacy Strategies and Technology

Cassandra Rubino

Manhattan College: Education 360

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Abstract

This paper explores my field experience at Tech International Charter School in Bronx, New

York. During my observation hours I noticed several students who had a problem paying

attention in seventh and eighth grade math classes. I was curious why so many students had

such a short attention span. I chose to work with Anthony and Brandon in order to help them

improve their concentration and focus. I created a plan which included brain based strategies

and technology that would demonstrate the relevance and usefulness of math to the students

and increase their level of interest and focus. Based on the research and insights gained from

experienced educators, I was optimistic that my approach would be effective. I was pleased

that the plan was successful in helping Anthony and Brandon. However, I address the

limitations of my approach because I am not certain that my plan would work with all students

who have difficulty focusing. I concluded that further investigation of other possible causes of a

lack of concentration may help determine if additional strategies would be beneficial to students.
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Developing Focus: Improving Concentration through Literacy Strategies and Technology

Introduction

The famous Indian Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda believed, The power of

concentration is the only key to the treasure-house of knowledge. I observed many problems

during my field experience, but I could not help notice there was one issue that was the most

common in all the classes. It made me wonder, Why do so many students have such a short

attention span? A lack of concentration and focus seems to be a challenge facing many

students. Since the ability to concentrate is linked to future success, this problem is important

because it prevents students from learning and reaching their full potential. I was very fortunate

to observe two math teachers at Tech International Charter School, a middle school in Bronx,

New York. Mr. De La Cruzs eighth grade students and Mrs. Lins seventh grade students were

a pleasure to work with and they really made me realize how important my future career as a

teacher will be. Anthony and Brandon, two of the students that I had the privilege of working

with, displayed signs of trouble focusing and paying attention. They were constantly looking

around the room or doing other things rather than concentrating on their math work.

One possible cause for their lack of concentration may be that they were distracted by

other students who had behavioral issues and were continuously acting up for attention. For

example, Michael kept calling out incorrect answers, even after the teacher asked him to stop

being disruptive. His disrespectful behavior interfered with the lesson since it caused students to

laugh or focus on him rather than the teacher. A second possible cause may be that they were

not motivated because there was no meaning for them. They did not understand why they

needed to learn about functions when they were never going to use them again. A third possible

cause may be that they were bored because they did not understand the topic or it was not fun.
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A possible solution for a lack of focus due to classroom distractions is to assign seats

and separate students. In order to motivate students, a possible solution is to make a lesson

relevant by relating it to real life situations and problems that they face every day. If students

believe they will need and use functions for their future, they may be more interested and eager

to learn about it. As far as boredom, a possible solution is to vary instruction and type of work

frequently between group and independent work and take mini breaks. Nonlinguistic

representations may be helpful depending on the needs of the students. Visuals such as

graphic organizers and illustrations may help students better understand. Kinesthetic activities

or games, and technology such as online math websites with interactive activities make math

more fun and interesting to learn. During my inquiry, I researched sources for how teachers

should address the problem of paying attention. I found that researchers suggested brain

based learning strategies and technology were successful with helping students focus. Based

on this research, I decided to try using nonlinguistic representation literacy strategies and

technology with Anthony and Brandon to demonstrate the relevance and importance of their

classroom learning. I created a plan that included these strategies in order to determine how to

best help these students improve academics by developing their literacy skills.

Researching the Problem

Former President Barack Obama stresses, Literacy is the most basic currency of the

knowledge economy. Literacy involves reading, writing, listening, speaking, understanding, and

annotating in order to comprehend, communicate, and gain knowledge. It includes the ability to

apply critical analysis and inference. Literacy in math includes the ability to use symbols, charts,

units, variables, equations, graphs, formulas, numbers, measurements, and balance. However,

students may struggle to develop these skills if they lack concentration or do not focus on their

learning. After observing and assessing the literacy level of middle school students, I decided
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that a lack of concentration and focus is a problem worthy of exploring and so I began my

investigation to acquire new knowledge. Based on my hypothesis of what would help Anthony

and Brandon focus, I researched articles on learning strategies that would not only help them

better understand, but also make it fun and relevant so they actually want to learn math. This

inquiry process gave me insights that could promote literacy and possibly solve the problem.

According to education professors Sylwester and Cho (1993), helping students pay

attention is a major concern of educators. Attention, the ability to focus the mind, is a

prerequisite to learning and a basic element in classroom motivation and management.

Teachers should adapt instruction to the limitations of students' attention span and use

imaginative teaching strategies to enhance the development of students' attention processes.

Although scientific understanding of our attention system emerged only recently, successful

teachers have found ways to deal with this issue. They flip the light switch off and on to get

students' attention since a voice command has little contrast in a noisy classroom. They follow a

repetitive sedentary activity such as lecturing with an enjoyable activity such as an interactive

game since interest and pleasure can reverse a depressed attention system.

Sylwester and Cho (1993) conclude a major problem educators face with students

needs for high contrast and emotional overtones is that the curriculum is predictable. We want

students to solve problems automatically and unemotionally, but mastery reduces their need to

actively attend to the process. The result is routine, low-contrast curricular tasks bore students

who spend hours watching TV, with its emphasis on high-contrast and violent programming,

which attracts active attention. It is a dilemma because the effective teaching of skills can

reduce students active attention to the process. However, teachers can creatively respond

through playing skill mastery games to increase attention on otherwise unemotional,

low-contrast learning tasks. For example, a math relay game is unrelated to mastering the
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multiplication tables, but since games produce attention-getting excitement through rapid action,

teachers can use them to adapt their instruction to the processing realities of students' attention.

According to neurologist and experienced classroom teacher Judy Willis (2014),

teachers should integrate brain-based learning strategies into their lessons. Students must care

about new information or consider it personally important for it to go through the brain filters and

be stored as memory. Teachers can use their names, names of their pets or favorite sport with

math problems to connect students to the material. The brain is a pattern-seeking organ, so

when students recognize relationships between new and prior knowledge, their brains link the

new information with existing knowledge for long-term storage. Graphic organizers and making

analogies builds patterns so students can see the relationship between chunks of information.

Once information gets to the prefrontal cortex, students must work with it to build permanent

memories. For example, students can write summaries of new information in their own words.

To make it more personally meaningful, summaries can be in forms that suit their learning style

preferences including graphic organizers, sketches, and diagrams. Students can use different

color pens to emphasize important information. Willis (2017) concludes that after ten minutes of

doing the same activity, neurotransmitters, brain transport proteins that are needed for memory

construction and attention are depleted. Syn-naps are brain-breaks to change the learning

activity to let the brain chemicals replenish. They can be activities such as stretching, singing, or

acting out vocabulary words.

Schools have evolved from a one-room schoolhouse to virtual classrooms, but how

students best learn and how teachers best teach are crucial questions in education that have

not changed. According to Connie White (2014), former physics, chemistry and math teacher,

parent, technology and learning director, and educational consultant, teachers should

incorporate strategies and technology that foster student engagement and learning. In over
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twenty years of experience, she has found that research about the brain can catalyze our

understanding of how students learn and how educators should teach. Several brain-based

factors teachers can incorporate into lesson design include a positive environment, brain

plasticity, multi-faceted instruction, real world connections, reflection and attention span.

White (2014) concludes that teachers must encourage students and provide a safe,

nurturing environment because if students think a teacher cares and believes in their abilities,

their achievement improves. When students are in a positive learning environment, endorphins

released in the brain produce a feeling of euphoria and stimulate the frontal lobes, making the

learning experience more pleasurable and successful. Research shows with activity and use,

neuro-pathways and connections become stronger and information is stored and retained.

White has found apps such as Tynker and Hopscotch allow students to analyze problems and

foster critical and computational thinking. The brain needs multifaceted experiences. Learning

is increased when different types of memory pathways are incorporated in teaching, so

instruction should include technology and auditory, visual and kinesthetic strategies. Lessons

must be relevant. If learning experiences involve real-world, meaningful problems the

information is more likely to make it to long term memory. Students need time to reflect on their

learning for better understanding. Students can write journal entries in OneNote or Evernote, or

summarize on Padlet. Learning experience activities should vary since the average attention

span of children is ten to twenty minutes.

Creating a Plan

Based on what I have learned in my Language and Literacy education class, my

experience from observing in the field, and the new research I found on adolescent learners and

diverse learning needs of students, I devised an instructional plan for working with the students.

In order to create an effective plan to develop literacy skills for academic improvement, I
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decided the best approach would be to use a combination of literacy strategies that would

accommodate Anthony and Brandon and help them improve their concentration and focus. The

goal was to increase motivation by demonstrating the relevance of a lesson to real life situations

and find creative ways for them to learn and understand a topic that they find boring or difficult.

The first step is to use real life word problems so it has meaning and students can relate

to the lesson. After that, I would use graphic organizers to highlight steps and important

information so Anthony and Brandon can visualize the concepts and hopefully gain a better

understanding. Next, I would try a kinesthetic activity (interactive activity or game) to make the

learning process more fun. Then, I would introduce them to various online websites they could

use at home to reinforce math concepts learned in class. Some technology apps that could be

used to provide support for math literacy include: Desmos and Geogebra (graphing calculators),

Kahoot (play games and multiple choice questions), Evernote and OneNote (summarizing and

note taking strategies), NearPod (access websites, download graphs, create quizzes for class),

Shadow Puppet Edu (create slideshows or videos that explain how to solve problems). Finally,

to show them that they most likely will need to use the math skills they are learning, I would

encourage Anthony and Brandon to explore or research math related jobs so they realize how

important math knowledge is to a variety of careers they may be interested in for their future.

Executing the Plan

I was excited to meet with Anthony and Brandon and to use the plan to determine which

literacy based strategies would work best for them or which strategies would not work at all. I

tried my plan on Anthony and Brandon since they both seemed to have difficulty paying

attention. The eighth grade pre-algebra class was learning about the topic of functions. Students

were using function tables to determine domain and range. At the start of the lesson, I gave

Anthony a real life problem to solve. I related the function to a real life situation involving a trees
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age and height, rather than just using the variable x and y. I asked him to explain each step as

he solved the problem. He proceeded to plug in the age of the tree (input) to determine the

height (output) and concluded that the output was 20 times greater than the input which meant

the height of the tree was 20 times the age of the tree. Using real objects rather than just

variables helped him understand the relationship between the age and height of the tree.

After solving the problem, I asked Anthony to fill out a descriptive graphic organizer with

vocabulary words such as function, independent variable, and dependent variable. I gave him

different color pens and suggested he draw pictures and examples to help him visualize and

remember that a function describes the relationship between input and output. Next we played

a game using a function chart. We took turns filling in the missing information and solving the

functions. Anthony was happy that he didnt have to do all of them and was hoping I would solve

incorrectly so he could win. Then, we used Desmos graphing calculator to graph the functions

so he could see how the graph relates to the equation. Anthony liked the idea of using the

Desmos App so I suggested he try Geogebra graphing calculator to graph the functions he had

to do for homework that night. At the end of the lesson, I asked Anthony to Google math related

jobs and check off any jobs that he may be interested in for his future career. He was surprised

at how many jobs required or involved math skills.

The seventh grade class was learning about the topic of area and circumference.

Students were using pi, math formulas, proper rounding, labeling units, shading diagrams, and

learning the relationship between diameter and radius. At the start of the lesson, I gave Brandon

a real life problem. I asked him to draw and label a diagram to help him visualize what he was

trying to solve. We compared the area of a circle to parts of a pizza, one of his favorite foods.

He understood that if he wanted to find the area of half a circle, he could pretend he ate half the

pizza. After that, we used a descriptive graphic organizer to organize formulas and vocabulary
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words such as area, circumference, and perimeter. I provided him with different color pens and

asked him to sketch pictures and label diagrams and examples so he could visualize what he

needed for each formula. Next, we played an analogy game showing the relationship between

the diameter and the radius of a circle. This helped him understand that the relationship of the

diameter and radius is always a 2:1 ratio. Then, I showed him the Kahoot App that he could use

to play games and answer multiple choice questions. Since he liked playing video games, I

suggested he also try the Nearpod App to access websites, graphs, and practice quizzes at

home. At the end of the lesson, I also asked Brandon to Google math related jobs and check

off any jobs that he may be interested in for his future career. As I suspected, like Anthony,

Brandon also did not expect to find that so many jobs required or involved math skills.

Reflection

The literacy development I tried included using technology and several literacy strategies

including nonlinguistic representation, in order to motivate Anthony and Brandon and create an

interactive, easy to understand approach to learning math concepts. I found that these

strategies engage students and encourage learning because they make math lessons relevant

to their lives in a fun way. I was relieved that the plan worked well with both Anthony and

Brandon. They exceeded my expectations because they were very cooperative and eager to

learn new skills. However, I do have some concerns that these strategies may not work as

effectively with every student who has a problem focusing.

Conclusion

Based on the results of my observations and experience working with the seventh and

eighth grade middle school students at Tech International Charter School, I have come to the

conclusion that using technology and a combination of various literacy strategies increase

student engagement and understanding. After reviewing the data on Anthony and Brandons
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learning experience, I have determined that the next steps I should take for these learners to

help them make greater progress include encouraging them to continue using the techniques

that they learned not only in math, but in their other subjects as well. Although the plan was

effective with Anthony and Brandon, I still have questions regarding students who have trouble

paying attention because there is no guarantee that my plan will work with other students who

have similar issues with the ability to concentrate and focus.

In order to answer my questions, I will have to continue to investigate other forms of

research including educational psychology journals. I could explore other possible causes such

as a students belief about their ability and effort. Students may not think they are capable of

carrying out tasks or putting the proper effort into the task to be successful. A lack of

self-esteem or self-confidence may contribute to the problem of focusing so students need

encouragement. A students environment may also contribute to a lack of concentration, so it is

important for students to have support from parents, teachers, and friends. These other possible

causes may require using different strategies such as praise and rewards. Revising the plan

with additional strategies will make it more effective. The new plan will work better because it

will take other possible causes into consideration and utilize a greater variety of strategies to

address the reasons for a lack of focus among middle school students. One of the most

important things I learned during this process is that improvement is a continuous cycle because

there are so many ways to build on the plan to make it better. Just as the students I observed

and assisted, I too as a future educator must constantly strive to learn new ways to improve and

solve problems in and out of the classroom to ensure that students have an opportunity to

develop their skills and improve their learning in order to reach their full potential.
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References

Sylwester, Robert & Cho, Joo-Yun (1993). What Brain Research Says About Paying Attention.

Educational Leadership. pp. 71-75. Retrieved from

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec92/vol50/num04/What-Brain-

Research-Says-About-Paying-Attention.aspx

dSurge.
White, Connie. (2014). How Can Brain-Based Learning Change the Classroom? E

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-09-23-how-can-brain-based-learning-change-the-cl

assroom

eachHUB.
Willis, Judy. (2014). Master Brain-Based Learning in 10 Simple Steps. T

http://www.teachhub.com/master-brain-based-learning-10-simple-steps