Still boring, getting better

As the title states, I'm still doing a lot of really boring "me talk and you write" type of teaching.  But it's getting better over time.  I find myself being more adventurous in my attempts to put more types of novel learning activities in with my regular, comfortable, teaching style.  I've tried things that have worked better than I anticipated and that has been encouraging.

Specifically, doing a lot of things with Perms and Combs and my 30-2s is really encouraging to be engaged.  McDonalds and DQ both have combinations involved in combos.  Oreo permutations are today and I am hoping for good results.

Still having issues with my higher achieving class, 20-1 Honors.  They work hard, but don't really want to share their thinking, or answer questions.  Maybe fear of wrong answers?  Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions.  Probably.

Some of my 20-2s come into class with the conviction that they will not do anything.  I think their first unit exam will hit them hard.  I hope it doesn't damage their confidence but I think it will be a good wake-up call. Many of them think they can achieve the objectives, so they don't do the examples.  They write down what I do and talk the rest of the time and think they "get it".  At some point, they will look at me and say "I don't get it at all, I'm confused" and then sit there and do nothing.

I find that interesting, the polarization.  Either they "get it" and don't need to do it, or they "don't get it" and don't need to do it.  Not getting it is not a sign to them that they need help, but a ticket out of doing anything. They sit there on their phones and talk to their friends and then exclaim "this is too confusing!  I don't get it!" when I ask them why they haven't done anything.

Yet they have made no effort to understand.

Is this a behavior that we, as teachers, have trained into them?  Or is it just individual students that have this type of attitude?  I'm not sure.  Need to make my lessons more interesting to try and engage these kids, but sometimes they just have to buckle down and do the work.  Not sure if some of these kids are capable of it, and it's going to catch up with them.