The Icing or the Cake?

Please, please, please try to just shake it up sometimes. Give us a variety of work and activities and don't just stick to the same type of lesson every day."

This student's plea, reported in Grant Wiggins' 2014 Annual Student Survey of Academic Experience, reflects the longing of students in classrooms everywhere. Embedded in this learner's request are the top three culprits of classroom boredom, echoed by numerous high school students in the same survey: "Our assignments are just busywork," "There's no variety in what we do from day to day," and "The teacher talks too much."