You don’t know the engaging “coffee break” hack you need

Ah, natural downturn. Everyone in your classroom can feel it. That dry atmosphere is like every brain running at a speed of 0.25. How many of us try to continue teaching through these stupid atmospheres, but we know that no much learning happened in the end? We need to make changes – rote lessons and introductions to new things. Teacher Lisa Cole has the answer. She has adjusted the concept of the meeting to suit the needs, interests and attention of students and called it a “coffee break.”

Hacker: Bringing Google Slides with Projects of Student Interest Brain Breaks and Community Builders

Miss Cole uses Google Slides to build daily classroom facts and develop a community environment that supports student interest and engagement. The Coffee Break hacker introduces a engaging range of educational content, ranging from daily jokes and memes to current news segments and inspirational messages. Daily brain disruption helps predictability, organization, accessibility, community building and relationships among students. It can also serve as a platform for important announcements and learning goals, making it a tool for daily classroom management. Here are some examples of slides that Miss Cole uses:

Ha ha! She gives students the option to agree to the memes for the day. I know my students will slam the memes I use!

How to implement a coffee barrier hack

Here is how any teacher can implement this hack in class:

1. Prepare: Use resources like Slidesgo or Slides Carnival to find free templates that suit your style. Repeat these slides every day of the week.
2. Content addition: For each slide, add elements you want to include, such as boarding scales, daily jokes, memes for the day, current news, and motivational videos or songs. The more slides you add about what students like, the more you can connect with students!
3. Custom: Customize each slide with titles, images, GIFs or links you collect from various sources, such as the top five SEL Content in Edtomorrow or YouTube for educational videos. If you keep up with current pop culture, this may also be an easy way to implement it.
4. Integration: Once the slides are ready, add them to your Google classroom for easy access and presentation on the same day.
5. Promotion Conference: During the designated “coffee break”, present the slides to your class to rejoin the classroom. The more you develop your classroom culture, the more you allow students to decide every day when a coffee break occurs!

Benefits of Coffee Barrier in Classroom

I love everything about this hack and do something similar in my classroom. If you haven’t sold it yet, here are some additional benefits:

• Enhance participation: Start, interrupt or end class interactions and various content, attract students’ attention and help their brains prepare for learning.
• Building a community: Regular checking for memes or jokes can help strengthen relationships between students and between students and teachers.
• Improve organization: Students and teachers can maintain their schedule and responsibilities by incorporating daily reminders and educational goals into the slideshow.
• Promote inclusion: All students are accessible via Google Classroom and can view the content of the day at their own pace to ensure everyone is included.

Here is the note shared by Miss Cole with our team of teachers:

“This is a very versatile hack! Have you been forgetting to attend? Add slideshow! Have you forgotten to address your learning goals at the beginning and end of the course? Add slideshow! If you want to connect with students, talk about slideshows! They look simple, but they create a lot of good conversations. Add what your students like and take out what they don’t care about. Once you get into the routine, let the students host the coffee break!”

Multifunctionality and tips

As Miss Cole pointed out, this brain rupture is adaptive. Whether it’s adding attendance slides, embedding learning goals, or promoting student-led “coffee break” presentations, the hacker offers endless customization options. It can be tailored to suit different grades, disciplines or special education settings. Miss Cole also recommends making slides interactive so that students can respond in real time. She recommends embedding hyperlinks into text or images to keep the resource clicked to simplify the flow of presentations and discussions.

Ready to merge this multi-functional tool to provide a better learning environment for everyone?

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