First of all, it's awesome you're putting in the effort your students deserve! Your question and many of the answers exactly fit a framework taught to me in un

First of all, it's awesome you're putting in the effort your students deserve! Your question and many of the answers exactly fit a framework taught to me in university pedagogy classes (which were a part of my PhD program). According to this framework, there are three levels of teaching: Level 1: teachers focus on how the students are. Level 2: teachers focus on what the teacher does. Level 3: teacher focus on what the student _is doing_. I think you are mostly now operating on level 2. You should try and switch to level 3! Review all the concrete activities the students are doing and ask yourself: how and what the student is learning when they are doing this? See this reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0729436990180105 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0729436990180105 Also think about this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_alignment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_alignment p.d. If you decide to apply these methods, be prepared for some initial resistance from the students - effective learning is not easy and many students have rarely experienced it!