How should students who have difficulty concentrating be treated?
Difficulty focusing can often occur along with other conditions, such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity disorder or learning difficulties. With our students who have difficulty focusing, cannot pay full attention to the lesson or work they are currently doing, make mistakes despite knowing the correct answer on exams, constantly procrastinate on study or other tasks that need to be done spend a long time in front of computer games or technological devices such as tablets and television. We observe the situation.
Difficulty focusing can often occur along with other conditions, such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity disorder or learning difficulties. With our students who have difficulty focusing, cannot pay full attention to the lesson or work they are currently doing, make mistakes despite knowing the correct answer on exams, constantly procrastinate on study or other tasks that need to be done spend a long time in front of computer games or technological devices such as tablets and television. We observe the situation.
Following the earthquake disaster in our country last month, one of our students said: “I get distracted very easily during classes and exams, I can’t concentrate. I have to read the same question over and over.” We started hearing phrases like While we accept that it is difficult to focus after a traumatic situation for a period of time as a normal situation, it is helpful to mention what can be done to eliminate or reduce this problem. What can be done to make focus stronger?
1. Environmental factors that distract the student and make it difficult to concentrate must be regulated.
There can be many factors that make it difficult for the student to concentrate while studying. Looking at the home environment, we see that the main reasons that make it difficult for our students to concentrate are the current conversations of other family members or the constant hearing of the television sound. At this point it is very important that the student has their own space to study and that other people in the house make sure they don’t talk as loud as possible while the student is studying. In addition, the student’s study environment must be made comfortable and it must be ensured that the study table is not too close to the window. Turning off or reducing distracting light sources is another factor that keeps students focused. This involves regulating or reducing the environmental factors that distract the student; It is very important to increase the student’s work efficiency and influence his success.
2. Physical needs must be met
The fact that the student slept well is one of the factors that most influences focus. It is also important that the student has a balanced and satisfying breakfast before starting to study at home, before going to school and before the exam, and not feeling hungry. Meeting physical needs is one of the most important things that increase focus and lead to success.
3. Put tech gadgets on hold for a while
Given the digital age, students’ proximity and contact with technological devices such as televisions and tablets is unavoidable. In this time when the concept of “digital detox” is on the agenda, it is important that students stay away from technological devices as much as possible during their studies. The notifications of these technological devices in the environment during the study distract the student’s attention and make it difficult to concentrate. For this reason, it would be helpful to turn off these technological devices for a while, mute them, and activate “do not disturb” mode for a while before starting the investigation.
4. Support them to take a break after a certain amount of time
If we work for a long time without a break, we notice that the student has difficulty focusing, has difficulty understanding what he is reading and makes attention errors when solving the test. For this reason, trying different techniques, such as the Pomodoro Technique, taking a short break of 5 minutes after studying for 25 minutes, is very functional in increasing focus.
5. Identify your routines and encourage the student to stick to them as much as possible
Sometimes we see that students have work to do during the day and therefore cannot fully concentrate on their work. In particular, planning and determining key time periods such as meals, quality family time hours, and homework/study hours can help students focus more easily on the work at hand.
6. Turn theoretical knowledge into practice and make studying fun
Students may have difficulty or get bored internalizing the academic information in the book while studying. For this reason, activities and experiments can be done to support the understanding of the student’s knowledge and thus focus more easily. It is helpful to use technology in terms of visual learning at this point. Knowing the important effect of gamification in every aspect of education, you can get much more effective results by using gamification tools in putting knowledge into practice.
7. Pay attention to individual differences and do not compare with others
Comparison is a subject that will create a lot of sensitivity among students. In particular, it is necessary to act in the knowledge that individuals have a very fragile structure in this regard. Do not forget that each individual has its own development, pace, in short, individual differences, and in that sense do not compare the student with other individuals.8. Don’t hesitate to get expert support when you need it. Support from professionals is very helpful in many ways. Expert support must be provided quickly, especially where it is believed that there is no solution, in order to avoid negligence. If it turns out that despite all efforts and agreements the student still has difficulty focusing, it is useful to quickly call in expert support so that the underlying causes can be further investigated.