Short Attenion Spans

I think it's common knowledge that most people have a relatively short attention span. If you were a child, your attention span would last roughly from 3-5 minutes. If you were an adult, your attention span probably lasts about 20 minutes before your focus starts to stray.

Look, I even have to add in pictures to keep you interested!

It's interesting to see how schools differ with how long each period is and how many periods are set for a day. Sydney Girls used to have 8 equal 40 minute lessons (+5 minutes for roll call in first period) so I'm always baffled when I hear about schools having 53 or 71 minute lessons.

For one thing, how can you tell exactly when the bell is going to ring? It's much simpler when the bell rings when the long hand reaches a number on the clock. Plus, having 40 minute lessons meant that we really only end up doing work for about 30 odd minutes of class. (Settling into class always used to take about 5 minutes, sometimes more if we were feeling rowdy.)

Now I actually miss those shorter lessons. Shorter lessons = less attention required.

I often wonder what the attention span of an average university student is since mine has drastically decreased since high school. Lack of structure probably does that to people.

So I'm curious, how often does YOUR attention stray in a 1 hour tutorial?

photo from ihasadog.com