Ah, a natural slump. Each and every person in your classroom can feel it. A dry atmosphere that makes every brain feel like it’s operating at 0.25 speed capacity. How many of us have tried to continue teaching through these Daft vibes, but have we not had much learning in the end? Shake up is required. In other words, it’s a pause in the memorization lesson and introduces something new. Teacher Lisa Cole has the answer. She adopts a meeting concept called “Coffee Break” that matches the scope of students’ needs, interests and attention.
Hack: Use Google Slides with Student Interest as a Brain Break and Community Builder
Miss Cole uses Google Slides to build daily classroom facts and develop a community environment that supports student interest and engagement. The “Coffee Break” hack offers a set of engaging and educational content that includes everything from daily jokes and memes to current news segments and motivational messages. This daily brain break helps in predictability, organization, accessibility, building community, and developing among students. It also serves as a platform for important announcements and learning goals and is a tool for daily classroom management. Below are some examples of slides used by Miss Call:
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Haha! She gives students the option to agree to the memes of the day. I know that students were blaming me for the memes I used!
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How to implement a coffee break hack
Here’s how teachers can implement this hack in their classroom:
Preparation: Use resources such as Slidego and Slide Carnival to find free templates that suit your style. Duplicate these slides on a day-of-week basis. Add content: With each slide, add elements to include, such as check-in scales, jokes about the day, memes of the day, current news, inspirational videos and songs. The more slides you add about what students like, the more you can connect with them! Customize: Customize each slide with titles, images, GIFs, or links that you collect from a variety of sources, such as the first five of Edtomorrow’s SEL content or YouTube for educational videos. If you’re going to keep up with current pop culture, this is also an easy way to implement it. Integration: When you’re ready for your slides, add it to Google Classroom for easy access to the day and presentations. Presentation: Present slides to classes during designated “Coffee Break” times to recreate the classroom for engagement. The more classroom culture evolves, the more students can make every day decisions when a coffee break occurs!
Benefits of a classroom coffee break hack
I love everything about this hack and did something similar in the classroom. If it’s not on sale yet, there are a few additional benefits.
Enhanced engagement: Starting, suspending or ending a class with interactive and diverse content will attract students’ attention and help your brain prepare you for learning. Building a community: Regular check-in and laughter sharing memes and jokes can help strengthen the relationship between students, students and teachers. Organizational improvement: Students and teachers can keep their schedules and responsibilities constantly by incorporating daily reminders and educational goals into their slides. Fosters Inclusivity: Accessible via Google Classroom, allowing all students to see content for the day at their own pace, and to include and provide information.
Here’s a note that Miss Cole shares with the We Are Teachers team:
“This is a very versatile hack! Do you keep forgetting to attend? Add slides! Have you forgotten to deal with your learning goals at the beginning and end of the lesson? Add slides! If you want to connect with students, talk about slides! They seem easy, but they create so many good conversations. Add things that students enjoy and take out things that don’t bother you. Once you’re in regularly, have your students host a coffee break!”
Versatility and tips
As Miss Call pointed out above, this brain break is adaptable. Whether you add attendance slides, embedding learning goals, or promoting student-driven “coffee break” presentations, this hack offers endless customization options. It can be tailored to a variety of grades, subjects, or special education settings. Miss Call also suggests that the slides be interactive, allowing students to respond in real time. She advises you to embed hyperlinks in text or images to click on the resource and simplify the flow of your presentation and discussion.
Ready to incorporate this versatile tool for a better learning environment for everyone?
