What If The Worksheet Is The Problem?

As an educator, I’ve always felt fortunate to have summers that allow for rest and reflection. While there are always lingering tasks, the time to decompress is something I don’t take for granted. And yet, despite my annual goal to fully disconnect, I inevitably find myself circling back to a question about education, something I want to better understand or improve.

This past summer, that question was surprisingly simple: What is it about the worksheet that allows it to endure?

After years of professional development focused on lesson design, differentiated instruction, and Universal Design for Learning, the worksheet remains a constant in classrooms. On the surface, its value is clear. Worksheets provide structured opportunities for students to practice skills, demonstrate understanding, and engage with content at varying levels of complexity. They are efficient, flexible, and familiar.

But the more I thought about it, the more unsettled I became. I couldn’t quite pinpoint why.
Then one evening, I found myself thinking about my youngest son. He is naturally curious, eager to learn, and generally engaged in learning new things, at least, he does a convincing job of appearing so. Yet he has struggled in school, particularly in traditional classroom environments that rely heavily on independent, self-directed work...often in the form of worksheets.

That reflection prompted me to revisit my own teaching practice. I thought about the lessons I enjoyed teaching, the activities students responded to most positively, and the reasons behind those experiences. Inevitably, I came back to the worksheet.

I can recall days when I leaned on worksheets as a way to create time to catch up with students who were behind, mark assignments, or plan ahead. In hindsight, those were often my least effective teaching days. Students were disengaged. The energy in the room drifted. Without strong direction or purpose, many students filled the time with distractions (conversations unrelated to learning, time on their phones, or simply disengaging from the task altogether).

This led me to think more broadly about our Grade 8 students. The teachers I work with are exceptional.  They design thoughtful, rigorous learning experiences and challenge students to think deeply. And yet, one consistent theme in our conversations is the sheer energy that Grade 8 students bring into the classroom.

So I began to wonder how might we harness that energy more effectively?

More specifically, how can we build opportunities for physical movement into everyday classroom learning, not just in Physical Education, but in Math, English, Science, and beyond?

That question led me to a simple but provocative idea: what would it look like to eliminate the worksheet, or at the least, reimagine it?

From there, my thinking shifted. Instead of asking students to sit still and complete tasks on paper, how might we transform those same learning goals into active, engaging experiences? How might movement become a tool for learning rather than a distraction from it?

This curiosity evolved into a summer of brainstorming exploring ways to turn static worksheets into dynamic activities. And while I certainly don’t have all the answers, the question itself has sparked something meaningful.

This year, that spark has grown into an exciting pilot project at Sentinel. I’ve had the privilege of working alongside eight dedicated teachers and two outstanding district specialists, Amber Pascual and Erin Crawford. Amber and Erin have taken what began as a loosely formed idea and helped shape it into something practical and impactful.

I’ve long admired their work in elementary classrooms, where movement and engagement are often more naturally embedded. The challenge, and opportunity, was to adapt those approaches for a high school context. While many elementary strategies are valuable at any age, we knew that implementation at the secondary level would require a different entry point for both students and teachers.

Together, the team has focused on a guiding question: How can small, intentional bursts of physical activity enhance student focus and academic performance in high school classrooms?

Through collaborative workshops and in-class demonstrations, Amber and Erin have shown how even brief moments of movement can improve attention, deepen engagement, and bring a sense of energy and joy into the learning environment. Early observations have been promising, not only in terms of student focus and performance, but also in the overall classroom climate.

We still have more to learn. With one final lesson and a debrief session ahead, I’m eager to hear from participating teachers and continue refining this work. My hope is that this project will lead to a practical toolkit of strategies that teachers can use to engage students more actively, while perhaps reducing our reliance on the traditional worksheet.

Finally, I want to extend my sincere thanks to the teachers who embraced this pilot: Ms. Deneau, Mr. Huh, Ms. Bauck, Ms. Krug, Ms. Ogawa, Ms. Shakleton, Mr. McLean, and Ms. Smith. Your willingness to experiment, reflect, and lead in your classrooms is what makes this kind of innovation possible.

And as for the worksheet? I’m not sure it’s going anywhere just yet. But I do think we can begin to ask more of it, and more importantly, more for our students.

AI tools were used as feedback helper to edit and refine my rambling. An AI tool was used to generate the image at the top of this post.

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