Finding the Sweet Spot

My students weren't apathetic about exit tickets. They were reading the room, and the room said I was grading, not curious.So I made one shift that cost nothing. Before I scored a single paper, I named out loud what I noticed. Same task, same difficulty, completely different response the next day.Which brings us to the Curiosity Curve, and why the gap between what a learner knows and what they need to figure out is never the only variable. Knowledge, novelty, uncertainty, challenge, safety. A recipe that fails two cooks in opposite directions. What Tom Sawyer understood about a fence.You can't build the perfect gap for every person. But you can change how it feels.