The 10 Minute Class

If you teach, you already know that the attention span of a student is limited. For a lot of my students, their attention span is very limited. We live in such a time of instant gratification and fast paced change that even my non-blocked 45 minute class period is too long for them! So how do we fight it? How do we get students with such short attention spans to stay focused? Only teach for 10 minutes.

Use the Google Timer - Super Easy... Google the word Timer 

"Wait - Do what? Did I take a crazy pill this morning?" 

I don't mean that I only teach for 10 minutes of my class (gosh, wouldn't my sophomores just love that). I mean I only teach any given thing in short increments. Sometimes these are 5 minute chunks, others they are 10 minutes, and ultimately sometimes you really do need a full 20 minutes. This means I do approximately 4-5 different things/lessons/activities (whatever you need to call it) in a class period. 

Again, I stop to ask, "Am I crazy?" 

The answer is: No, I'm not crazy.

This is seriously, actually doable, and it's really pretty manageable, even if you aren't a super OCD planner. Take any activity/lesson/thing you've done in a 40 minute class period in the past. Now, break it up over 4 days. Voila! 10 minute chunks are born. 

"But they need to write a whole essay for me..."

Okay, so set your timer. They get 10 minutes each day.

"But we are reading a short story; I can't just stop halfway through."

Um - why not? I do it all the time (now). 

"But when do we take notes?"

Take notes in 10 minute bursts over an entire week; your students will relish not sitting through 45 minutes of Charlie Brown's teacher, "Wah, wah, wah, wah..." 

I facilitate my class chunks with the daily use of my class notebook, but more on that in another post.