As the school year progressed, students demonstrated increased self-awareness of their engagement levels and learning preferences. Teachers shared that students have become more proactive in advocating for their own learning preferences, such as requesting to work in specific settings that suit their needs. Teachers spoke of seeing a transformation in students' perceptions of engagement in the classroom, shifting from mere compliance to deeper cognitive understanding by the end of the research program.

Teachers spoke of focusing on understanding students as whole individuals, recognizing that factors outside of the classroom can significantly influence engagement and academic performance. Teachers suggested that understanding how students learn outside the classroom, such as at home or during sports, appeared valuable for tailoring instruction and supporting their learning journey in the classroom. Teachers also highlighted how activities that help students discover their preferred conditions and ways of learning can have significant effects on both their desire and ability to learn.

At the beginning of the school year teachers expressed interest in measuring engagement in the classroom but felt there could be significant challenges in collecting such data. By the end of the year, teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the current methods of measuring success in elementary school students, which include test scores, grades, and standards-based grading. Teachers cited a disconnect between engagement and measuring student success, with some students being highly engaged in discussions but facing challenges when it comes to demonstrating their understanding in written form, which impacts their proficiency scores. The teachers’ desire to pay more attention to measuring engagement was accompanied by a sense of urgency that wasn’t present in the first round of interviews.