Combat distraction by creating spaces for students to concentrate. Use headphones, cubicles and defined work spaces.
Transcript:
Easily, the most common issue in my classroom is students that are distracted. Probably at least half of them at any given time are not paying attention, realistically. Some of the things that I've done to combat this issue of distracted students is to create preferential seating, especially during test taking, where students go to a very particular test spot. They know that's their test spot, and it might be separated from the rest of the class. This is not seen as a punishment.
Also, I have included the use of headphones to block out ambient noise, and also partition boards -- or privacy boards -- that lets their visual focus remain inside the partition board on their desk.
