Inspired Teaching Teacher Activities
A collection of lessons and activities from Inspired Teaching to foster authentically engaging learning with students and deepen teachers' understanding of their role in the classroom.
Whether you teach early childhood or calculus, these award-winning lessons and activities—informed by 30 years of work with thousands of educators—authentically engage, spark curiosity, build community, and support academic success in your classroom. The self-led teacher assessment tools challenge you to shift your role from deliverer of information to Instigator of Thought, providing small steps with big payoff for reinvigorating your practice and rediscovering your why.
Say “Yes” More: Snap Inspiration
What happens when you track how often you say “yes” in the classroom?
What Will They Learn?
Teachers ask their students what they have learned all the time throughout the year. Have you ever asked them what they want others to learn from them? I
Make Room: Snap Inspiration
How much of your room is devoted to your students versus the teacher?
Make Praise Meaningful
Track how often you provide generic praise and try some new language for meaningful and supportive, encouraging feedback.
Lunch Date: Snap Inspiration
Eat lunch with a small group of students. Talk about something besides school.
Let Students Be Teachers
Saying “Yes! And…” means being open to student voice and believing their knowledge, questions, and problem-solving open up new routes toward reaching goals.
Let Go of “Deliver:” Snap Inspiration
Teachers do not deliver information into students; children should be the subjects of our work, not the indirect objects.
If You Want to be President: Snap Inspiration
This thought experiment is a simple way to encourage critical thought about what qualities good leadership requires.
Graffiti Board
A Graffiti Board can strengthen community, elevate student voice, connect to content, and show students you care about what’s on their minds.
Emotion Continuum
Through this challenge, students build their vocabularies and build productive strategies for communicating feelings and needs to adults and to one another.
Don’t Speak: Snap Inspiration
This Snap Inspiration encourages teachers to let students take the lead in classroom conversations.
Ask “So What?”
Understanding—and being able to articulate to students—why a lesson’s content matters is an essential part of planning.
