Strategies to Boost Student Focus and Learning Efficiency

Are you frustrated with keeping student attention? Or maybe you’re anxious about AI and how it should (or shouldn’t) fit in the classroom. Technology is changing rapidly, but the science of learning has not! In this episode of Cool Cat Teacher Talk, we explore how to protect student focus, strengthen real learning, and respond wisely to artificial intelligence. We can do this without losing the human heart of great teaching.

After a news segment exploring growing concerns and lawsuits around AI safety and misuse, we’ll talk with AP Psychology teacher and author of Do I Have Your Attention?, Blake Harvard. Blake digs into the learning science that actually works. We’ll dig into retrieval practice, spaced repetition, the power of pretesting, formative assessment, and feedback that helps students remember more and learn better.

Then, literacy expert Mary Ehrenworth shares how teachers can strengthen reading, vocabulary, and writing, and how AI can serve as a tool to support learning (while not being a replacement for thinking.) You’ll walk away with practical classroom strategies, clearer guidance on AI, and ideas you can use this week to help students pay attention, learn deeply, and love learning.

Key Takeaways for Teachers

• Use retrieval practice and spaced repetition to help students retain learning over time.
• Start lessons with low-stakes pretests to focus attention and prime memory.
• Build frequent formative assessments that reveal what students truly understand.
• Give timely feedback that helps students move from “I heard it” to “I can do it.”
• Design classrooms and routines that reduce distraction and protect attention.
• Use AI as a thought partner and feedback tool, not a replacement for student thinking.

Visual Summary

To create this graphic, I took the transcript into my Notebook LM for Cool Cat Teacher Talk and created an infographic from it. These are important things that we do discuss in today’s show.

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Author Bios as Submitted

Blake Harvard

Blake Harvard is a full time teacher in Alabama. He is in his 20th year of teaching and currently teaches AP Psychology. He has a particular affinity for reading research into cognitive psychology for implementation in his classroom to improve student outcomes. He began writing about how he implements these research findings on his website (www.effortfuleducator.com) 9 years ago. Blake recently released his first book, Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning. It focuses on memory processing and learning strategies that over a century of research indicates improve learning in the classroom.

Blake has worked with numerous organizations like ISTE, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the US Department of Education and has also presented to numerous faculties across the world about memory and learning.
Blog: https://theeffortfuleducator.com/
Twitter: @effortfuleduktr – https://x.com/effortfuleduktr/status/1912217350260109542
Facebook: The Effortful Educator – https://www.facebook.com/theeffortfuleducator
Linked In: Blake Harvard – https://www.linkedin.com/in/blake-harvard-b668a5178/
Podcast: No podcast.
Other social media: @blakeharvard.bsky.social – https://bsky.app/profile/blakeharvard.bsky.social

Books by this author:

Dr. Mary Ehrenworth

Dr. Mary Ehrenworth co-led a think tank on global literacy at Teachers College, Columbia University, for twenty years. She now runs Ehrenworth Literacy Innovations, working nationally and globally to empower teachers and students through critical literacies and collaborative inquiry. Her most recent research fields are AI and literacy, and vocabulary acquisition. From that day long ago when a beloved teacher gave her The Secret Garden, to the days she now spends supporting children and teachers in becoming powerful and passionate readers and writers, Mary has been lucky enough to spend her time among things she loves best: books, kids, and teachers.
Blog: