The Engaging “Coffee Break” Hack You Didn’t Know You Needed

Ah, the natural slump. Every single person in your classroom can feel it. That dry atmosphere where it feels like every brain is operating at 0.25-speed capacity. How many of us have tried to keep teaching through these daft vibes, but we know not much learning has occurred in the end? We need a shake-up—a pause in the rote lesson and an introduction to something new. Teacher Lisa Cole has the answer. She has adapted the concept of a meeting to fit her students’ needs, interests, and attention spans, which she calls a “Coffee Break.”

The hack: Use Google Slides with student interest items as a brain break and community builder

Miss Cole uses Google Slides to structure daily classroom facts and foster a community environment that supports student interest and engagement. The “Coffee Break” hack presents a series of engaging and educational content that includes everything from a daily joke and meme to current news segments and motivational messages. This daily brain break helps with predictability, organization, accessibility, community building, and relationship fostering among students. It could also serve as a platform for important announcements and learning targets, making it a tool for daily classroom management. Here are some slide examples that Miss Cole has used:

Haha! She gives her students the option to agree with the day’s meme. I know my students would have slammed me for the memes I used!

How To Implement the Coffee Break Hack

Here’s how any teacher can implement this hack in their classroom:

1. Preparation: Use resources like Slidesgo or Slides Carnival to find free templates that suit your style. Duplicate these slides for each day of the week.
2. Content addition: For each slide, add elements you want to include, such as the Check-In Scale, Joke of the Day, Meme of the Day, current news, and inspirational videos or songs. The more you add slides about things the students like, the more you can connect with your students!
3. Customization: Customize each slide with titles, images, GIFs, or links that you gather from various sources, like EdTomorrow’s First Five for SEL content or YouTube for educational videos. If you keep up with current pop culture, this could also be an easy way to implement that.
4. Integration: Once your slides are ready, add them to your Google Classroom for easy access and presentation for the day.
5. Presentation: Present the slides to your class during your designated “Coffee Break” time to reenergize the classroom for engagement. The more your classroom culture evolves, the more you can allow your students to decide daily when the Coffee Break happens!

Benefits of the Classroom Coffee Break Hack

I love everything about this hack and did something similar in my classroom. If you’re not sold on it yet, here are some added benefits:

• Enhances engagement: Starting, interrupting, or ending the class with interactive and varied content grabs students’ attention and helps their brains prepare for learning.
• Builds community: Regular check-ins and shared laughs over memes or jokes can help strengthen relationships among students and between students and the teacher.
• Improves organization: Students and teachers can stay on top of their schedules and responsibilities by incorporating daily reminders and educational targets into the slides.
• Fosters inclusivity: Accessible via Google Classroom, all students can review the day’s content at their own pace, ensuring everyone is included and informed.

Here is a note that Miss Cole shared with the We Are Teachers team:

“This is a very versatile hack! Do you keep forgetting to do attendance? Add a slide! Do you forget to address your learning targets at the beginning AND end of a lesson? Add a slide! If you want to make connections with students, talk about the slides! They seem simple, but they create so many good conversations. Add things your students enjoy, and take out ones they don’t care about. Once you get into a routine, have the students host the Coffee Break!”

Versatility and Tips

As Miss Cole notes above, this brain break is adaptable. Whether adding attendance slides, embedding learning targets, or promoting student-led “Coffee Break” presentations, this hack offers endless customization options. It can be tailored to fit different grades, subjects, or special education settings. Miss Cole also suggests making the slides interactive, allowing students to respond in real time. She advises embedding hyperlinks in texts or images to keep resources a click away, simplifying presentation and discussion flow.

Ready to incorporate this versatile tool for a better learning environment for all?

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