Use the concentration grid layout to improve concentration.
Improving the functioning of the mind can help make learning and using new information easier and more efficient. Concentration is vital to the learning process for young children. The MedlinePlus website reports that up to 5 percent of the children in America are suffering from some form of attention deficit disorder, or ADD. The concentration grid exercise may help these children.
Types of Concentration
Psychologist Robert Nideffer created a unique way to think of concentration. He proposed four different types of concentration. Broad-external concentration focuses outwardly on a wide field of interest. For example, watching a football game in a stadium and surveying the entire field would be broad eternal attention. Narrow-eternal attention focuses on a single detail that has importance at the moment. Broad-internal attention refers to comparing old situations with current situations--e.g., if you are having a fight with a friend and try to remember old fights with him. Narrow-internal attention focuses on one aspect of your internal self, such as your heartbeat.
Concentration Aspects
There are also four different aspects, according to The Extra Gear website: selective attention, maintaining focus, situational awareness and the capacity to shift attention. These aspects of concentration are shared by all the types suggested by Nideffer. Selective attention is the concentrating on one detail at a time. Maintaining focus helps guarantee that you will receive all the details necessary from your selective attention. Situational awareness is a "broadening of the beam" of your focus, meaning you pay attention to all stimuli around you to decide where to focus your attention next. Shifting attention refers to focusing your attention on something new.
Importance of Concentration
All types and aspects of concentration are equally important. For example, if you are at a party, you could use your broad-external attention to assess the situation and decide on who looks more promising as a conversation partner. You can then access your narrow-external attention to focus on that person and his conversation as well as his body language. Your broad-internal attention can be used to search for a suitable conversation topic; once that has been found, your narrow-internal attention can find different areas of the topic to discuss. Poor concentration in any of these areas will create a poor conversation and ruin a potential friendship.
Concentration Grid Exercise
Fill a 10-by-10 square grid with the numbers 0 through 99. Place these numbers randomly in the grid. Hand them out to your students. Each student will need a pencil or pen to do this exercise. Give them one minute to cross out as many of the numbers as they can in a specific order. For example, they can go from 0 to 99 or from 99 to 0. They can also concentrate specifically on eliminating numbers that end in a 0 or only variables of four. Add challenge to the game by adding music, loud noises and other distractions.
Use
Concentration grids can help improve many aspects of concentration. For example, players will have to use their broad-external attention to survey the whole card for numbers and their narrow-external to find the specific number they need. Players will also use their broad-internal and narrow-internal attention to remember the orders the numbers must be placed. Many sports use this game to improve concentration, such as swimming.
Tags: aspects concentration, attention focuses, attention refers, broad-external attention, four different