Engagement isn’t extra: boredom busters that prime the brain for learning

Student engagement is not the same as having fun: it’s the foundation for meaningful and lasting learning.

In this article + podcast episode, Katie Powell, author of Boredom Busters: Transform Worksheets, Lectures, and Grading into Engaging, Meaningful Learning Experiences, shares simple yet powerful strategies that help teachers transform their classrooms into spaces where students thrive. Katie Powell is the Director for Middle Level Programs for AMLE, a membership organization dedicated to supporting middle school educators, and her experience as a middle school special educator deeply informs her practice.

Whether you’re trying to bring more fun into your lessons, address curriculum pressures, or manage student behavior during engaging activities, Katie’s practical advice can help. You’ll discover:

• Why engagement is essential for learning and how it primes the brain for retention.
• Simple strategies like “deploying worksheets differently” that make learning more interactive.
• How movement, humor, and creative activities reduce behavioral issues and improve focus.
• How to balance the demands of standardized curriculum pacing with engaging strategies.
• Practical ways to manage transitions and behavior during high-energy activities.
• How engagement fosters a sense of belonging, safety, and fun in the classroom.
• The value of empowering students to understand their own learning needs and self-regulation strategies.
• How to start with small, manageable shifts to make your teaching more engaging and effective.

Our conversation is packed with practical tips and real-world insights to help you make learning fun, meaningful, and memorable.

Listen to episode 333 below,
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Sponsored by Opportunity Gap and Rocket PD

First steps toward engaging lessons: redefining worksheets

ANGELA: Katie, you have a series of books all about busters—homework busters, boredom busters. These are all tools and strategies that make learning more exciting and engaging for kids. Tell me how you got the idea for this and why it’s something you’re passionate about.

KATIE: So my first full-time teaching position was in special education, and I was a mid-year hire because the teacher before me was being fired midway through the school year. If you can imagine what circumstances would be necessary to lead the school to fire a middle school SPED teacher partway through the school year. What had been happening in that classroom, unfortunately, was not healthy for the students.

When I was hired into the position, I was not SPED certified at the time. I was on an emergency license to do that. The principal said, “Katie, if you do nothing more than love these kids, that’s what they need right now.” And I was like, Well, I know how to do that.

But I inherited students who had decided that whatever school looked like, felt like, was not for them—that they were not the students school was for. I found that, in order to be successful with them, I almost had to hide the learning. Because if they came into the classroom and it already felt like whatever classrooms had felt like up to this point, they would walk in and already be checked out because they had already decided it wasn’t for them. So I was pushing desks out of the way. We were lying on our bellies on the floor to do things. We were playing games to learn, and it was working really well.

And so, in all of my new teacher enthusiasm—and maybe a little bit of arrogance—I was like, Well, everyone should teach this way.

Thankfully, part of my job as a SPED educator was to co-teach with my colleagues, and it was in those co-teaching relationships that I developed tremendous respect for their teaching styles and their expertise. I realized that expecting my colleagues to teach the way I did was disrespectful to the expertise they were bringing to the table, but that we all needed to be taking steps to more authentically engage our students.

This was in a season where we were moving from tenure to teacher evaluation as a system in education. Overnight, a teacher who had been a good teacher because they’d been teaching for 35 years was now being measured by how engaged his or her students were. And that was a tough shift for a lot of my colleagues who were used to being defined as good teachers and were now finding that they didn’t fit the modern definition of a good teacher.

And I realized that’s the stuff I know how to do really well. So I started almost reverse-engineering the things I was doing and taking it back to where does this start? I began thinking about my colleagues in a zone of proximal development—where are they comfortable, and where do they need to go to hit these targets of engagement?

What would it look like if you just took one step toward more authentically engaging your students? And so I started with worksheets.

Worksheets are universal; they’re trusted. They come with every textbook series you adopt, and that’s what my colleagues were using. But there’s a research-based phenomenon where, the minute students’ fingers touch a photocopied piece of paper, a piece of their soul dies. So, to minimize that impact, what would happen if we just deployed that worksheet differently and changed up the way we were doing something so simple and so trusted and so predictable? And it works.

So that’s really where the busters came from—an attempt to really honor the fact that a teacher’s teaching style, personality, and expertise is a precious commodity. We shouldn’t be communicating to teachers that there’s one standardized way to teach. Instead, the diversity of what we bring to the table is a tremendous asset to our profession, but all students need to be authentically engaged.

Can we all find a starting point within, again, that zone of proximal development for ourselves and find what one step toward more authentic engagement would look like for us?

That’s fantastic. And I love this idea of deploying worksheets differently. You don’t have to just pass them out and have kids do them.

There’s actually really creative and engaging things that we can do with worksheets because worksheets do have value. And there are some worksheets that we’re just mandated to give. It’s sort of unavoidable.

Can you talk about some of these boredom busters or engagement strategies around deploying worksheets differently?

Yeah, so this is my favorite place to start when I do professional development around the boredom busters. My go-to to kick this off and really explain what this looks like is paper airplanes.

So if you imagine, you have a worksheet that you’re planning to give today, and you know, oh, there’s that phenomenon—a piece of a student’s soul has died the minute they touch the paper—and you’re like, I need to be more engaging in how we do this.

It’s as simple as, when students get the worksheet, they put their name at the top, they do number one, and they stop. Then, after they complete number one, you have them turn their paper into a paper airplane. At your signal, they’re going to launch it somewhere else in the room. They’ll get someone else’s worksheet to sit down and do number two.

We’re going to repeat this until the worksheet is complete. They get their original back, and now they have the answers from classmates around the room. They get some of that soft feedback—Does what they were thinking match what I was thinking?—and so they get to wrestle with the content a little more than if they were just turning it into a teacher and waiting for a score.

But then you’re going to have them justify, argue, refute, defend, and provide evidence for the answers on the page. So what they’re turning into you then is not just answers but also evidence of their thinking.

And it was simple. You didn’t need to plan ahead or make special resources; you just changed the way you deployed that worksheet so that students had the opportunity to be more engaged.

I love that. Keep going. Tell me more.

OK, so there are times when teachers are a little uncomfortable with students getting up and moving around the room. I advocate for it. It is a developmental need. Kids need gross motor movement. All the way through our college-age learners definitely still need gross motor movement because their brains are not fully developed yet until their mid to late 20s.

We’ve got to get kids moving. But if that makes us uncomfortable, we can authentically engage the brain even without necessarily getting our bodies up and moving.

One of my favorite ways to do that—I tend to say that regurgitation is not evidence of mastery. So when we’re asking questions to check for understanding, if we’re asking questions where a student could find the answer in their textbook or their notes, all that really tells us is that they know how to use their textbook or their notes.

One of my favorite go-to strategies to get them to really think and put words to their understanding of something is junk drawer. You give students an item—I have Google images I use for this, but it can be as simple as looking on your desk and saying, “OK, here’s a fork. How does this fork relate to photosynthesis that we just talked about in class for the last 20 minutes?”

It’s not in their textbook or notes. They can’t just regurgitate the thinking of someone else to you. They have to make those connections.

And it’s weird, so the brain lights up when something is unexpected or novel. Forcing that kind of connection means we have a highly engaged brain. It’s open-ended—there’s not one right answer we’re seeking. Students who would check out because “Ooh, I don’t know that answer” are invited into participation in a strategy like this because there’s not one right answer we’re seeking. Everyone can find the door.

Lecture busters and engaging methods of error analysis

These are really great. Tell me about some of your favorite boredom busters that may not have to do with worksheets or anything like that, and how they can be applied in everyday lessons.

I love what I call lecture busters in the book because they’re so quick and easy to deploy, things like the junk drawer. I also have one category in the Boredom Busters book that is maybe a little less flashy: the homework busters.

They were born out of the need. We know through longstanding research that grades aren’t particularly transformative for students. If they get an assignment back and there’s a grade at the top, they might say, “Oh well, I got 37%,” but it doesn’t really do anything to move their learning forward. Descriptive feedback is where the magic is.

But what teacher has time to give descriptive feedback on every assignment all the time? That’s not sustainable. So I have a series of strategies that invite students to assess themselves, glean meaning from the work they’ve done, and use that as a transformative process to improve further.

The door into that, where we usually start, is with error analysis. Error analysis has existed for quite some time. Let’s say you gave a homework assignment yesterday, or you have a series of problems you’ve done in class that students need to check. Instead of calling out the answers to number one, number two, number three, give them the answer key. Let them self-check.

Teachers often gasp and say, “What if they lie? What if they didn’t even do the assignment and they’re just writing answers down?” Well, we’ve got you. With error analysis, there’s a form they fill out for every problem—because if you don’t, they will lie and get fewer wrong—or you pre-select certain problems you want students to analyze heavily.

Students record on that form whether they got it right or wrong. If they got it right, they have to prove it. Show the steps. What page number did your evidence come from? Support that answer so we know you got it right. If they got it wrong, explain why. What went wrong? What needs to happen differently in the future?

Then guide students through looking at what they’re getting wrong and finding patterns. For example, in math, they may have missed 12 problems, but seven of those might be from dropping negatives in multi-step problems. That’s really one error repeated seven times.

When students see that, it’s much more empowering than a 37% at the top of their paper. They’re able to say, “I really have one thing I need to fix.” That gives you so much for differentiation. Now, when you’re meeting with groups, you’re not just meeting with the kids who got 40% on yesterday’s assignment. You’re meeting with the kids who dropped negatives.

The opportunity to transform learning and personalize it is present, but also sustainable because we’re not hauling the teacher tote bag home to sit down after dinner and try to write this kind of feedback for all of our students. They’re in the driver’s seat, and they own it.

Using engagement to move beyond fun and into deeper learning

Everything you’ve said so far really emphasizes that the purpose of these busters isn’t just to make lessons fun or entertaining. The deeper purpose is to help make the learning stick, to make it more meaningful and more relevant, to help kids really do critical thinking, to notice patterns. You’re creating experiences that are memorable, too. How can teachers use these strategies to increase retention and deeper learning instead of just focusing on excitement for the moment?

This is an important question because engagement is the target we’re working toward, but we have to be very conscientious about what we’re asking students to engage in.

I think of a story I come back to every time I’m asked a question like this. I was doing a presentation in my home state of Indiana for science teachers, and a teacher came up to me afterward and told a story about teaching solutions and mixtures. She and her class made snow ice cream together and talked about solutions and mixtures.

She said, “Katie, it was one of those core memory experiences. We were fully engaged. We loved it. We felt like a community together.” But when they took the test on solutions and mixtures, especially questions specific to vocabulary, they did poorly.

She asked, “What happened? They were fully engaged.”

If we look at engagement as this glitter we’re sprinkling on top of our lesson plan—thinking, “Oh, if our students are having fun, then the learning will stick”—we’ve got a half-truth there.

The condition of the brain when we’re having fun is conducive to making memories. Learning is really chemistry. Fun lights the brain up in just the right way. But for students to remember that and use it, for example, on assessments later, we have to be intentional about what the engagement focuses on.

Does the engagement focus on the fun we’re having, the game we’re playing, the activity we’re doing? Or does the engagement support the content students need to be mastering along the way?

I encourage teachers to be intentional about what activities they select and why. Some activities in the boredom busters book use time limits to create anticipation for students. That wouldn’t be appropriate when students are brand new to content and need protected think time to wrestle with ideas. But it’s perfectly appropriate for spiral review or test prep when something should be more rote recall.

Fun isn’t the objective. Fun is the powerful tool for meaningful learning, and we have to be masters in how we utilize that tool.

How would that work if that teacher was going to redo the lesson with the snow and mixtures? What would actually make the learning stick?

Great question. I don’t know that there’s a singular answer, but when I think through strategies that may be important to come alongside an experience like snow ice cream, I think the snow ice cream was valid. We just needed to dovetail other experiences that kept the academic vocabulary concrete for students.

For example, I have one in the book I call speed dating. You can give half the class a vocab word, the other half a definition, and have them pair up. They talk: “Do we match? No? Then who are we looking for?” Mix them up, move them on, and encourage students to use that academic language.

Engagement and movement strategy: Musical desks

Another example is musical desks. You cut a worksheet apart, put a question on each desk, and have students rotate desk to desk answering questions. My favorite way to do this is to leave a piece of paper on the desk for students to respond to. If they sit at a desk that’s already been answered, they need to support the answer with evidence. What page in the textbook supports this? Can you explain this thinking another way? Can you add something to this answer or take something away to make it stronger? What vocab words or definitions would be important to understand?

The more we make their brains work, the more likely they are to master the content. The trick is, like when I was an early SPED teacher needing to hide the learning, students can have a lot of fun playing a game while we know we’re making their brains work up a sweat. Those are the magic conditions for retention.

Can you break down that particular approach, the one where students are moving from desk to desk? How does that work? How do you set that up?

This is one of my favorites. I give some guidance—being primarily a middle school teacher myself—because those are large bodies moving around small classrooms. You start with modeling. Show them how you want them to move around the room. Have them practice.

They’ll say, “Really?”

And you say, “Yes, really. We need to model this. How do you get in and out of a chair?” Because otherwise, they’ll “parkour, parkour!” all Michael Scott-style across the desks.

My favorite approach is to put a question or prompt on every desk. I do this with essay questions, and it’s beautiful because one of the things that stops a student with essay questions is the blank page.

Turn on some music—pre-screen it carefully because, Murphy’s Law of Teaching, the moment an administrator walks in will be the moment a sexually explicit lyric plays.

So you pre-screen your music, practice moving through the room, and students rotate with their writing utensil. When the music stops, they sit at a desk, and that’s the question they’re working on. They won’t stay at that desk for the entire activity—just for two minutes or however long you decide is appropriate.

For an essay question, for example, a student doesn’t have to know the whole answer. They only need to know 120 seconds’ worth of the answer. This keeps them from being overwhelmed by a blank page. The next student who sits down at that desk will then see the start of an answer.

They might not approach it the same way, which challenges them to consider someone else’s thinking. They develop that perspective by supporting the existing answer with evidence and continuing that train of thought.

So much of school is isolating—a student sits at a desk with their own assignment and their own writing utensil. We tell them not to talk. Or, if we put them in groups, it often devolves into chatter about lunch plans.

Using structures like this meets developmental needs, such as movement and resetting the attention clock. It gives students opportunities to share their thinking and consider the perspectives of others while driving the learning deeper.

This process pushes students to think critically, argue, justify, refute, and defend. It creates the kind of brain engagement—what I call “brain sweat”—that helps make learning stick for the future.

Preventing classroom management issues & having alternate plans

I’m sure you’ve had teachers say to you, “I’m afraid to do that because I’m not sure I can get them settled again.” That transition from moving around and having fun to sitting down and concentrating feels daunting for some kids.

Yes, that’s a common concern. There are a lot of tools to manage this, and it’s about finding what works for your circumstances.

If we bring the energy way up, we need to bring it back down afterward. That might mean transitioning to a moment of chair yoga or a breathing exercise. As silly as those things might feel, they actually work with the brain.

Students might be in a state of hyperarousal after an energetic activity. Their bodies and brains may be too amped up to focus. Breathing calms the nervous system, bringing the energy level back down while keeping the brain awake and eager.

When it comes to classroom management, especially with getting students up and moving, I recommend tagging students in.

For instance, if you teach multiple class periods and think, “This strategy won’t work for my third-period class,” go to them a few days ahead of time. Say, “Hey, I’m trying out a new strategy, but I’m not confident with it yet. Can you all be my beta testers?”

Students will lean in, excited to help. Try it for just five minutes. Give them directions, let them test it, and afterward, ask for their feedback. “What worked? What didn’t? Were my directions clear? What should I watch for with other classes?”

When students help co-create the activity, they’re much more likely to engage in it moving forward. Their fingerprints are on it, and they’ll take pride in making it successful.

What happens if the majority of the class can handle it, but there’s one or two students who can’t seem to participate appropriately?

That’s such a common scenario. Unfortunately, we often let the immaturity of a 12-year-old dictate our teaching. Instead of delivering expert-level instruction to the rest of the class, we revert to saying, “Fine, we won’t do the fun thing.”

But no student’s immaturity should dictate the learning for others.

One mistake I made early on was having a Plan B for students who couldn’t meet my expectations, and I would tell them, “If you don’t behave during this fun activity, you’ll sit at a desk by yourself and do the worksheet.” I gave them an out and communicated that I didn’t expect them to succeed.

If I had a time machine, I’d go back and shake myself by the shoulders. Instead, we should communicate that we expect all students to be successful.

Some activities may be overstimulating, particularly for neurodiverse students. Maybe that kind of noise or movement isn’t appropriate for them. Offering choices can help.

For example, you could say, “We’re going to do musical desks over here. Over here, we have an alternative activity, like a sorting activity that’s quieter but still engaging and active.” Let students self-select based on what feels most comfortable for them, without diminishing the rigor or engagement.

It’s unrealistic to expect any strategy to fit all students perfectly. One size does not fit all, as we know from the world of clothing. Our job is to keep offering options and help students understand themselves as learners so they can make informed choices.

When I had that Plan B alternative desk, I diminished the learning value for the student sitting there. That’s not what I wanted. The activity wasn’t just about fun; it was about deeper learning.

Instead, create alternatives that are just as rigorous and engaging but tailored to different needs. This communicates to students, “I expect you all to succeed, and I’ve created opportunities for everyone to get something meaningful out of this.”

When engaging students, think of lesson planning as a buffet line. At some point, every student will have their needs authentically met.

Not every activity will be a perfect fit for every student. But if you provide a variety of opportunities throughout a lesson or week, all students will find something that resonates and supports their learning.

I want to make sure folks don’t miss what you just said because I think it’s going to take a lot of weight off of some teachers’ shoulders who feel this pressure to individualize, personalize, differentiate every single aspect of every single lesson for every single student—which is not possible.

It’s particularly not possible at the secondary level when you have, like, 100 or 200 students.

So, we can teach kids to differentiate for their own needs. We can give them choices and allow them to self-select. But also, this piece you’re saying—where we’re offering them a buffet of things throughout the lesson, the day, the week, the quarter, or the semester—some things will be absolutely perfect for that student. Some won’t. And that’s OK.

Not only is it reality, because we have so many students and there’s only one of us, but it’s also good for kids to be stretched. It’s good for an introvert to have to do group work. It’s good for the extrovert to have to sit and focus. Thinking about personalization and meeting every student’s needs as something that doesn’t have to happen in every single moment is so important for teachers to hear.

Yeah, I agree completely. One of the things I advocate for, especially through my work with Frustration Busters, is honoring the professional experience of educators and protecting them. The mindset of “you’re a civil servant, so shouldn’t you do everything that’s good for kids?” can be damaging.

Doing what’s best for kids is a good principle, but this is also a professional workplace, and educators are employees. We need sustainable expectations. Most educators are perfectionists—we care so deeply about student success. We could have 99 wins in a day, but we’ll go home and lose sleep over the one loss.

If that’s already the mindset of most educators, burdening them with the idea that every activity must be the perfect fit for every student is unsustainable. Instead, think about the lesson plan as a whole. Are students’ needs authentically being met at some point in the lesson?

Maybe the whole group activity gets 85% of the kids. What am I doing to ensure I meet the needs of the other 15%? Differentiation doesn’t mean that every activity a student does that day has to address every need.

For example, using error analysis to differentiate might mean targeting a specific skill during part of a lesson—like helping a student who struggles with dropping negatives in math. That doesn’t mean every single activity that day focuses on that issue. It’s about stretching students in areas where they need growth while also meeting their unique needs elsewhere.

Balancing engagement with the pressure to cover curriculum

I want to pivot away from the classroom management and behavior management issues or potential obstacles for this and talk a little bit more about what teachers might be feeling in terms of pressure from the top.

I’m especially thinking about folks who feel like they have so much curriculum they’re required to cover that they don’t have sufficient class time. Having kids sit down to do a worksheet is so much faster than having them do the things you’re talking about.

So they’re feeling like they have to get right down to business. They can’t, quote-unquote, waste time on making learning more engaging. And it’s not because they don’t care or because they don’t want to—it’s because they truly can’t figure out the logistics when there are so many things they’re required to do.

The curriculum is a mile wide and an inch deep. There’s just so much they have to get to. What advice do you give to folks in that situation?

Yeah, it’s a great question. And honestly, one of the things we started to see even before the dramatic teacher shortages post-COVID—and it has only accelerated since then—is the standardization of curriculum.

You see these pacing guides where it’s written out: what lesson, what page number, what time of day a teacher should be on every single day. If someone from upper admin walks into a third-grade math lesson anywhere in the district, they expect all of those classes to be in the same place.

And man, I think these are risky mandates because meeting the needs of learners is not standardized like that.

I think we need to honor our educators as the professionals they are. And that means more than just parroting curriculum at students. But the honest reality is, even if we are under that kind of curricular pressure…

The way the brain works—if we think about it—picture your class coming back from recess, or your fourth-period class walking in after a passing period. Are most of those students walking into your classroom ready to learn?

And some, maybe. But the vast majority aren’t. They’re coming in red-faced and sweaty because they just ran on the playground. They’re tattling on so-and-so who bumped them out of line at the drinking fountain. They’re coming in thinking about not creasing their new Nikes. Or they’re wondering, “What’s for lunch today?”

Or, you know, “My best friend walked down the hall and kind of snubbed me—what’s going on there?”

They’re coming to us with other things on their minds and other things happening in their bodies that are barriers to being able to learn.

And especially now, with young people facing these unprecedented rates of anxiety, depression, and stress, we need to be really aware of brain state.

Even if a teacher finds themselves under a really rigorous pacing guide where they’re expected to sprint through the curriculum and adhere to a standardized pace—I get it.

But if they’re not doing something to honor the brain state of the students coming into their classroom, there are some students in that room who simply will not be able to learn. It doesn’t matter how vetted that curriculum is. It doesn’t matter how student-friendly the objective is, written nice and neat on the board.

Because of the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, if our students are coming to us in a state of hypo- or hyper-arousal, the prefrontal cortex is dark. It is not ready to learn.

In some cases, if a teacher is feeling pressure not to, quote-unquote, “waste time,” it’s important to acknowledge that if you just hand out the worksheet and go through the curriculum as it’s packaged, then yes, some students will learn from that.

But we are not inviting all students into that learning. In fact, we’re subtly communicating that some students aren’t expected to learn or don’t belong because we haven’t invited them into the process.

Simple activities at the start of class can make a huge difference. Humor, for example, is one of the most effective things we can do to foster a positive brain state for learning. Showing a carefully pre-screened, really funny video at the beginning of class lights up the brain, releases positive chemistry, and helps students get into a good mindset for learning.

Activities that engage both the body and the brain—like the ones we’ve discussed—help wake up the prefrontal cortex. These can be incredibly beneficial. If there’s concern about not getting through the whole worksheet because transitions take time, then set a timer. Pre-select the questions that are most important for students to wrestle with.

There are boundaries teachers have to operate within, absolutely. But within those boundaries, there’s still agency for teachers to make thoughtful decisions about what they do. For example, starting the class with a quick brain break activity that fosters a good brain state before diving into the scripted, pre-selected curriculum.

These activities typically take three minutes or less to help foster that positive brain state. It’s not wasted time—it’s flipping the switch to turn the brain on. Don’t we want to turn the brain on before diving into the curriculum? Absolutely.

If the boundary is, “I have to get through this worksheet today, no exceptions,” then pre-select the priority problems, set the timer, and do what’s necessary to stay within those boundaries.

But engagement isn’t extra. It’s not something we get to if we have time. If the brain isn’t lit up and turned on, all students are doing is putting words on pages. They’re not likely to remember that information or be able to use it in the future.

I think back to times as a special education teacher when students had worksheets to write vocabulary definitions. Inevitably, every school year, I’d have some students—who weren’t Spanish speakers—copy definitions from the Spanish glossary in the back of the book.

They were just transposing letter by letter, word by word, onto the page. They weren’t paying attention to what they were writing down. We have to get past that. We have to put students in a position where their brain is sweating—where they’re actively working with the content.

Whatever we need to do to make that happen within curricular expectations, while still advocating for protecting the professionalism of education, we have to do it.

Thank you for articulating that so clearly for teachers who need to be able to defend these practices. If an administrator walks into the room and it looks like you’re wasting time, kids can say, “We’re preparing our brains to learn. We’re turning our brains on. This is how we’re warming up our brains. We’re stretching those muscles before we begin to learn.”

Making that explicit for kids is key. This isn’t just a fun little diversion before getting down to business. It’s part of the learning. Engagement is not an extra.

It’s not an add-on or a nice-to-have—it’s something we have to do. Being passionate about this, being able to articulate it in depth, and also explaining it quickly to kids so they see the value is so important.

Helping students understand their own learning needs

Yes! And helping students see the value in these activities also teaches them to self-select good strategies as human beings. Think about how many times a kid gets mad at school. Being mad isn’t a behavior problem—it’s a natural human response.

They’re young, still developing, and we’re forcing them to be in school whether they want to or not. They’re around people whether they want to be or not. Sometimes, they’re going to get mad.

Anger doesn’t just live in the seat of emotions—it lives in the body. It creates energy. If we don’t give students healthy outlets for that energy, how can they calm down and re-regulate to re-engage with the expectations they’re facing?

Helping students understand how their brains, bodies, and nervous systems work is so important. Showing them why we do activities to turn their brain on or calm their nervous system is incredibly beneficial.

It helps them self-select strategies as they navigate their emotions, feelings, and interpersonal experiences in the future.

Yeah, so they can start to recognize, “Okay, in order for my brain to be ready to learn, I need some quiet time. I need to put my head down on my desk. I need to take some deep breaths. Or maybe I just have something I’m bursting to say and need to tell someone.” Helping kids identify their needs, tune into those needs, and think about how to prepare themselves to learn is so important.

Simple starting points to make your classroom more engaging

I think you’ve made a really strong case for creating this environment where kids are actively participating and not just passively absorbing information. What is the simple shift teachers can make to turn their classrooms into more engaging spaces?

I think a simple shift teachers can make to invite more engagement from their students is to think about their own zone of proximal development.

If they have a target they’re working toward as professional educators—whether that’s, “I want to bring more fun back into my classroom,” or, “I want to get students talking about content more,”—it starts with identifying where they are right now.

One of the things I hear a lot of educators working on right now is balancing teacher do versus student do—teacher talk versus student talk.

And the number of words we use in a class period versus the number of words students use. So whatever that target is that they’re working toward, what’s their typical go-to on a Monday through Friday? What does that look like? And what would it look like to take one step beyond what’s comfortable toward that goal? Just one step.

And know that it’s going to feel uncomfortable at first. Learning is uncomfortable. Our students are in that position full-time every day, and we often forget how vulnerable it feels to be a learner—to not have complete mastery of something you’re working toward.

So, be prepared for that discomfort. When you try something new, whether it’s changing the way you deploy a worksheet, offering student choice in one activity during a class period, or handling a classroom management challenge slightly differently, give yourself the time and space to feel uncomfortable with it for a little bit.

Gather evidence about what’s working, what’s not, and what’s behind any lingering discomfort. Then plan—what would one more step look like? What does it look like to take one more step out of that comfort zone?

That way, we honor our own personality and teaching style. What feels comfortable for us? We all have the fancy lesson plans we pull out when we know we’re going to be observed, and then we have the lesson plans that happen on a regular Thursday when we’re just trying to hold life together.

What does it look like to move that regular Thursday lesson plan toward that snazzy lesson plan we pull out for observations?

So that more of our days look like the snazzy ones and fewer of our days feel like the ones where, you know, we may not even have matching shoes on.

That’s a great goal—to have more of our days look like that. Not all of our days.

Yeah, it’s not sustainable.

We’re going to have bad days. And again, not every lesson, not every moment of every lesson. But if we think about one thing a week… and really, this is something to aim for throughout your career as an educator.

I mean, I still feel like I’m stretching and growing, even though I’m not in the classroom. I’m constantly learning new things, trying new things with the teachers I work with.

The benefit of that is it keeps everything fresh for me. There are a lot of other things happening there, too, but if I just keep doing things the way I’ve always done them, I’ll feel stuck in a rut.

And I’ll feel like all the challenges are external. It’s other people wanting me to do things. It’s them saying, “You have to change this.” When the change is forced on you, it isn’t always motivating or exciting.

But when you start the change yourself—when you set the goal of, “I want to do this to enjoy my work more,” or, “I want to feel more engaged,” or, “I want my students to be more engaged,”—it becomes meaningful.

When the goal is, “I want this lesson to be more enjoyable to teach,” or, “I want this to be memorable,” or, “I want this to be a fun day where I get to be creative with students and connect with kids,”—when you frame it like that, it’s motivating. It’s about doing all the things that brought you into this profession in the first place.

Exactly.

It’s not about, “Oh, I have to keep up with the times,” or, “If I don’t do this, the kids won’t pay attention.” It’s reframing the effort as a personal benefit for yourself, and I think that makes a big difference.

It’s extra effort, yes. But teaching the way you’ve always taught doesn’t take less effort—it just creates a different kind of effort. You’ll likely have more classroom management or behavior issues.

So maybe the question is, it’s going to take effort either way—whether you stay the same or whether you change.

Yes. And that’s the honest reality. We default to what’s comfortable, but if you ask most teachers, “Is this working for all of your students?” the answer is often no.

If you look at classroom management being the number one factor driving teachers from the profession, clearly there’s a disconnect somewhere.

It’s not as simple as saying, “If you’re a more engaging teacher, then you won’t have behavior problems.” No. The young human beings assigned to your class are wild little variables, and things are going to happen.

But the rule of thumb that an engaged student is less likely to act out and cause a disruption? That is true.

And when students enjoy being in our spaces—here’s an example. A school I worked with surveyed their students about their culture and climate experience.

They asked, “Do you feel like you’re having fun at school?” and “Do you feel safe at school?” The percentage of students who said they feel like they’re having fun was exactly the same as the percentage who said they feel safe.

For a young child, fun and safety are so deeply connected. A sense of “I’m liked here, I’m valued here, I belong here” is tied to those feelings. If we can make our classroom spaces places students want to be and where they feel like we want them there, then we’re more likely to get the outcomes we’re hoping for.

Going back to the question of whether this is a waste of time—it’s absolutely not.

We’re making investments in the lives of young human beings. These opportunities to help them feel empowered as learners, to experience success—this is meaningful work.

It feels good for your brain to light up. And that feeling becomes intrinsically motivating. Kids will be more likely to participate in those activities moving forward because it felt good.

So we’re not just helping them be successful as learners or retain the information to do well on a test. We’re giving them opportunities to grow as human beings, to benefit their overall experience. And that work is never wasted.

Awesome. I want to close out with what I call a takeaway truth. What’s one thing you wish every teacher understood about making learning fun and engaging?

Great question. I think if there were one takeaway truth, it’s that a teacher’s time and attention is the most precious resource we have in education.

Sometimes, in the standardization of teaching and the way we sprint through lesson plans, we lose sight of that. But our time and attention are the most precious things we can give our students.

So in that vein, I’d say I hope teachers know to be themselves.

It’s tempting to see someone out there—an author, a podcast host, an edu-influencer—and think, “I wish I could be that.”

But if you’re trying to emulate someone else, it will always feel inauthentic. So the reality is to love yourself, be proud of who you are as an educator, and know yourself well.

And as I’ve mentioned, take those first steps toward what you’d like to do. Take the steps that make sense for you.

Then work toward more authentic engagement, or whatever goal you’re pursuing. Being brave enough to take that first step is one of the most powerful things we can do. And then give yourself the grace to not have it 100% right, right away.

 

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