Ep 324: The Moment You Can Feel the Class Slipping (Secondary Classroom Routines)
From Secondary Teacher Podcast by Khristen Massic, Multiple-Prep Teacher Coach
March 10, 2026 · 12 min · Episode 324
About this episode
Khristen Massic discusses recognizing early signs of classroom disengagement and implementing effective routines to maintain student focus.
When you teach middle or high school, especially as a multi-prep teacher, you know that moment. The split second you sense your class tipping away from you—the energy shifts, side conversations spark, the structure thins, and suddenly you’re facing what host Khristen Massic calls in this episode, “the moment you can feel the class slipping.” If you’ve taught longer than a week, you know that feeling in your bones. Too many teachers wait until chaos takes over, thinking they can just push through or that a full-blown emergency classroom management plan is the answer. But here’s the hard truth: if you jump in when the room is already off the rails, you spend way more energy wrestling it back into shape. Host Khristen Massic learned that lesson in her computer lab, watching students go from focused to scattered in the blink of an eye—the shift always started small, long before the true mess hit. The old way? Pretending you can control every drift all the time, talking louder to chase after attention, hoping it’ll just fizzle out. That path’s a one-way ticket to burnout. There’s a better way—spot your “slip signals” early: voices rising, students wandering, off-task “can I…?”…
People in this episode
Host: Khristen Massic
Topics covered
- classroom management
- teacher strategies
- student engagement
- routine development
- multi-prep teaching
Keywords
- class slipping
- classroom routines
- teacher burnout
- student focus
- slip signals
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