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Exercises for optimising concentration levels of students - Austria

For the project the above-named teachers developed a booklet with activities to optimise concentration levels in students. The activities consist, to equal parts, of activating and focusing exercises. They should be organised in a clear way, i.e. if a teacher opens the booklet from one side, s/he will find activating exercises and if he flips the booklet over and starts from the back, s/he will find ideas for focusing. To clarify the two different groups, respective colour-coding for the background should be used, e.g.  red for activating and green for focusing exercises. The instructions themselves are mainly utilising pictures illustrating the different body positions or movements, supplemented by clear and short descriptions, if clarification is necessary. The duration of the planned activities does not exceed 5 min, acknowledging the restricted time resources in teaching.

The intended beneficiaries are teachers and students alike. Lack of concentration, especially in very early or late lessons, big classes or lessons preceding or following exams, is a major obstacle for teaching efficiently and with motivation. Most teachers are aware of the concentration-increasing potential of activating and focusing exercises but they do not have the time to research and prepare them for most of their lessons. So, a concise number of selected activities in a handy and readily available format might offer a tool to close the theory-practice gap with regard to this problem. As the main protagonists in the classroom and the performers of the exercises, students profit from the activities in various ways, and are therefore beneficiaries of the activities as well.

The process of development has reached the phase of producing a prototype, though it could not utilise materials that would be necessary for a product intended for mass production and long-term usage.