Keep them engaged through interactive discussions and brainstorming in class activities

Keeping tab on this discussion thread, excellent question indeed-y!

Teacher's ability to teach and the knowledge of the subject matter have a lot to do in that regards

Always mention the alternatives and pick up on small details constantly, with time, students will start noticing the small details as swell.

Find out how your students learn best? Do they prefer to read? Discuss? Listen? Ask them to reflect on how they are best able to pay attention to details.

Consider offering a reflective writing assignment in response to the prompt: Genius is the art of paying attention to details.

Also, grading rubrics are key in teaching students how to pay attention to details.

Integrating your students into activities and getting them working

Adopt the inquiry approach in your teaching

I would re-read the instructions to my students. I think you could also have your students in groups to help with paying attention to details.

Activities that require students to do careful observations individually and then collaborate in small groups, sharing their observations to solve problems is a very effective strategy. I have used this strategy with secondary students studying literature and art history.

I keep asking them, when they’re not expecting it. So they’re always prepared

In my case that I dictate university chemistry, it depends on the subject, if it is the periodic table I emphasize the characteristics of the chemical properties of the elements through groups and periods. Also in particular characteristics of each chemical element such as its oxidation states, electronegativities, ionic potential, type of crystals that can form and their geometric forms. The details of which students are able to detect, will depend very much on their own ability to observe.

Depending on the nature of lesson, say listening skills practice, selective listening strategy is used to enable students to sift the detailed information they need with a particular focus. Such strategy is essential and applicable in real-life context as we do not need to pay attention to lapses, slip of the tongue and surrounding noises and voices, but to the message. We cannot except conversations in real-life context to be in studio only. No doubt, detailed listening strategy comes in handy when students are engaging in listening for inferences and in listening that calls for critical thinking.

I usually do it through reading for comprehension or summary writing. I give my learners a text with some minute or trivial details which students would usually not pay attention to. I would then ask them to close their books and answer oral questions from memory. i would then ask them to summarise the passage text in their own words without losing important details.

Normally, assigning tasks and jobs that require sitting and that really constitute interesting problems, located in environments where there is not much incidence of distractions.

I think that teachers should develop their classes, precisely by emphasizing the details of a phenomenon, with insistence on its causes and effects. Analyze the concepts with a complex vision, since most of the phenomena are explained through diverse causes (variables), which may be acting simultaneously and/or systematically.

Encourage observation writing on a writers notebook.

Quick Read: "A writers notebook (unlocking the writer within you) by Ralph Fletcher"

Ways to Increase a Student's Attention Span

Children often struggle to pay attention, but when they are given a task they view as challenging or hard, they are even more likely to give up before truly trying. If you notice students that is regularly losing focus during challenging tasks, here are some strategies that might help increase that attention span and improve the overall outcome of tasks.

1. Include Physical Activity

Kids who struggle with attention often do better if they are given brief breaks for active play. Taking a break to bounce on an exercise ball, breaking up learning into chunks, and outdoor playtimes, or providing a quick stretching or jumping jacks break in the classroom, can all help the attention-challenged student stay focused. Starting with 15 minutes of active play before a challenging task can also help a child stay more engaged.

2. Have "Attention Breaks"

Teach the child or children what "paying attention" means and how it looks. Practice attentive behavior in non-threatening, non-crucial times during the school day. Then, at periodic intervals, have practice attention breaks. Using a timer or an app on the phone, have a signal go off during the work period, and have the child mark whether he/she was paying attention. This can help train a student's brain to understand what attention looks like, and how often he/she is tempted to disengage.

3. Adjust Time Frames

If you find that, no matter what you do, the kids just can't seem to stay on task, it may be time to break content into smaller time intervals. Remember, children can concentrate on one task for two to five minutes per year old. For example, if you have a classroom of 6-year-olds, expect 12 to 30 minutes of attention for your students.

If you need to adjust time frames for all or some of your students, do so. Using timers, have the student who is struggling with attention show his/her work after a short period of time. This breaks up the task and allows the child to keep working without feeling completely overwhelmed. Consider calling the child to your desk for these checks. This provides the physical movement that the child needs in order to stay engaged, and also gives you the opportunity to monitor his/her progress.

Also, be cautious about lengthy lectures with kids with short attention spans. These children need to be kept involved with the material, so ask for responses regularly on the subject matter you are discussing. Even a simple question, asking for a raise of hands, can be what is necessary to keep students on task.

4. Remove Visual Distractions

When a child is struggling with a difficult task, clutter in the classroom or on the desk can make it impossible to keep his/her brain where it needs to be. Remove unnecessary clutter and visual experiences from the workspace. This gives the child fewer excuses for not focusing on the task at hand.

5. Play Memory Games

Memory isn't really a muscle, but it can help improve focus. Memory games help hone that focus for kids in a fun way, so that they are able to concentrate when something challenging is presented. Have regular times in the normal school day where the class plays memory games, or work with the attention-challenged students outside of normal class time to play concentration games. Add memory games to classroom electronics to encourage this type of play during free time.

Memory games do not have to be complicated. Even a simple game of red-light-green-light, I-Spy or Simon Says forces a child to concentrate. Memory matching cards or the game Concentration can also be used to increase attention.

6. Rate (and Change) Tasks

If you notice a child is constantly avoiding work or seems overly distracted, ask that child to rate the level of challenge found in the activity on a scale of 1 to 10. If the child indicates the activity is an eight or higher, ask what could be done to make the task a two or three. Sometimes, you will get excellent insight into what you can do to help the student decrease his/her level of frustration.

7. Break Tasks into Pieces

If these strategies don't work, look at the task itself. Can you break it into smaller chunks? Have the child focus long enough to perform part of the task, then take a break, coming back to the project to finish. Children with attention struggles may actually perform the requested task faster with this strategy than if they simply tried to finish it all in one sitting.

Some kids are going to struggle with attention more than others. As a teacher, you can take measures to help improve concentration for your students. All it takes is a little extra thought and work on your part to bring significant change for your students.

First, I need to know their interest, then try to make activities that will excite them or align with their interest. Inject some not too formal joke but related to the topic especially, if the topic is too serious. Lastly, be mindful of your interest to your lesson. Show that you are enjoying the importance of your topic.

I am a secondary level social teacher. Generally, before entering the main topic I start the lesson with the discussion related to the topic and later I ask few questions to the student to understand their prior knowledge about the topic so that learning becomes student-oriented. similarly, I ask one of the students in the class to read the text and the other to point out where he/she is leading and sometimes ask in between to know if they are paying attending or not.

Test, tests and more tests!

At this time, the attention is divided, but I try to ask individual questions and vary the strategies to get the attention of the students.

I use gamification.

I think, firstly, our teaching style should be detail-oriented. If we teach a concept in detail, in depth and then ask questions that require detailed-deep thinking, students should learn to pay attention to detail.

Teaching/ learning process have shifted from old traditional ways. Now active learning is now in place. Learning strategy such as Peer-led, Classwide among others which advocates learning through social interaction and active participation of students can be used to attract full attention of student in classroom teaching

By developing the spirit of research and conducting a variety of activities in different fields.