At an in-service a couple of weeks ago, we received the little research tidbit that middle-school-aged students have a maximum attention span of some eleven minutes or so. The implication — made very explicit by the presenter — was that our lessons should have activity changes every fifteen minutes or so. You know, in order to keep students engaged and focused.
No mention was made about trying to expand and stretch students’ attention span and ability to stay on task for more than a relative nanosecond. And the notion that we could just say, “Look — today you’re just going to have to focus on this for more than a few minutes” was implicitly ruled out.
Which is good, because in high school, college, and beyond, all you really need is an ability to focus for about fifteen minutes in order to be successful.