Teachers are an important part of establishing and maintaining healthy classrooms and virtual learning environments (VLE) for children to learn and grow. Teachers may find inattention and distractibility concerning, but teachers can play an effective role in helping students focus and, when necessary, referring students to professionals.
Disclaimer
This information is designed to help teachers respond to students who may be in need of support. It is not intended to be used as a diagnostic tool or to replace the use of formal assessments employed by mental health professionals. Additionally, it is important to consider the context of the situation, individual differences, and cultural and linguistic factors.
What does inattention look like in school?
Behaviors that are similar in person and VLE
- Students frequently move around in their seats, fidget or walk around.
- Students get distracted by other stimuli in the classroom and do not appear to be engaged in the content/lesson.
- Students frequently chat with neighbors, disrupting their own and/or others’ work, particularly when the teacher is giving lessons or instructions.
- Students have difficulty completing tasks without repeated check-ins or reminders from teachers.
Behaviors unique to VLE
- Students frequently disappear from view, or their video turns on and off.
- Students appear overly distracted by other things at home (pets, cooking, siblings, other household distractions).
- Students frequently send chats through the school video platform, on social media, or via text messaging with peers, particularly when the teacher is giving lessons or instructions or during in-class work assignment time.
- Students have difficulty completing asynchronous assignments and activities that tend to involve less structure than synchronous and in-person activities.
What can teachers do?
Do: Follow a structured and predictable classroom and/or VLE routine and schedule. Have schedules and rules easily accessible to help manage students’ expectations.
Don’t put students in groups without structured roles and clearly defined tasks.
Do: Provide students with organizational tools and strategies. Check in frequently to make sure that students are continuing to keep materials and assignments organized. In VLE, make the organization as easy as possible, especially for young students. For example, provide checklists of materials to have ready for class and keep all video links in one place so they can be easily found.
Don’t assume that making or posting announcements or assignments just one time is enough for students to remember to complete them, or that all students (and their parents/guardians for VLE) are equally computer savvy.
Do: Help students set manageable goals for long-term assignments. For example, for a paper, set separate due dates for the outline, first draft, peer review, and final draft. Increased attention and reduced distractibility are teachable skills.
Don’t make judgments about how much attention is appropriate. Especially in VLE, attentiveness may look different for different students.
Do: Break work sessions and lectures into short chunks to help with sustained focus. For example, assign a subset of math problems with a break, instead of all the math problems at once. In VLE, incorporate bio breaks into video lessons to give eyes and bodies a break from the screen.
Don’t assume that all students in your class have the same ability to concentrate and focus. The ability to focus is highly variable across students, ages, gender, and contexts.
Do: Praise on-task or focused behavior. Notice the good that the student does. Say, “Wow, look how hard you are working!”
Don’t blame or shame students (or parents/ guardians) for attention problems.
Do: Privately address off-task behavior in a gentle way. For instance, privately tell or message/e-mail students, “Try to focus on your work now and in 5 minutes you will have a break.”
Don’t reprimand or shame students for fidgeting or off-task behavior.
Do: Provide meaningful rewards for completion of key tasks. When possible, allow students to choose the reward, such as free reading time and Zoom breaks for VLE.
Don’t rely solely on extrinsic rewards such as sticker charts or prizes.
Do: Keep in regular communication with families to keep them informed and identify possible reasons for inattention (e.g., lack of sleep, limited technology, or other issues).
Don’t make assumptions or claims about what is causing students’ inattention.
Do: Help students see the connection between on-task behavior and success by making explicit connections between effort and positive outcomes. For example, say, “Look how your hard work on your math homework increased your understanding!”
Don’t criticize, compare to work of peers, measure/contrast to past work, or diminish even small accomplishments, especially from their previous non-VLE experience.
When to act
- Be sure to follow relevant school and district policies regarding students experiencing inattention and distractability related to school tasks.
- If the student displays similar patterns of behavior with other subject teachers.
- Consider meeting with the student one-on-one or with the student and their parents/caregivers to learn more and offer support.
- If the student continues to exhibit a behavioral pattern of repeated distracted, disengaged, or inattentive behavior occurring over several weeks, or the frequency or severity increases, seek extra support from administration or school mental health professionals.
Additional resources
Empirical research
Acker, M.M. & O’Leary, S.G. (1987). Effects of reprimands and praise on behavior in the classroom. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15, 549-557.
DuPaul, G.J., Eckert, T.L., & Vilardo, B.A. (2012). The effects of school-based interventions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A meta-analysis, 1996-2010. School Psychology Review, 41, 387-412.
Fabiano, G.A., Pelham, W.E. Jr., Coles, E.K., Gnagy, E.M., Chronis-Tuscano, A., & O’Connor, B.C. (2009). A meta-analysis of behavioral treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 29-140.
Pfiffner, L.J., Villodas, M., Kaiser, N., Rooney, M., & McBurnett, K. (2013). Educational outcomes of a collaborative school-home behavioral intervention for ADHD. School Psychology Quarterly, 28, 25-36.
Sarver, D.E., Rapport, M.D., Kofler, M.J., Raiker, J. S., & Friedman, L. M. (2015). Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Impairing deficit or compensatory behavior? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 43, 1219–1232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-0011-1
Related Mental Health Primers
The Mental Health Primers are developed by the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education. This resource was updated in October 2021 with support from cooperative agreement NU87PS004366 funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views or endorsement of the CDC or the Department of Health and Human Services.