One interesting metaphor for teacher-student interactions is that of cats and dogs. Cats tend to want things like acknowledgment and praise on their own terms. They can be quite the challenge to interact with and it is often difficult to get them to show interest in anything. One thing that’s worked for me is to leave “cat traps” around the classroom. The box of pulleys, or a couple boxes with batteries, wires and motors. The “traps” are usually related to something we’ll be covering later in the year, but they are left out with no explanation or instructions for purely exploratory experimentation. I might, if they seem interested, show them something cool that can be done with the gear once I see them start playing with them on their own.
By the time the subject comes around in the curriculum the cats have usually developed a pretty good basic idea of the gear and have often shared this with others. I think it is a great way of driving learning through intrinsic student interests and peer-teaching. The only problem, is sometimes the students will gravitate toward the traps more than toward what they’re supposed to be doing.