Are Students a Source of Inspiration for Teachers?

Throughout my teaching experience I've found out that even when a class is made up of individual students who have their own personality traits, the class as a whole adopts a certain character that makes it particular. For that reason, we teachers should be as flexible as it is possible so as to adapt our teaching practice to a certain class in order to be successful and aid our students in their skill developing process. 

Apart from having a certain character, a class as a whole varies as to its mood to which the way the students feel on a particular day contributes. 

I teach several groups of teenagers and even when they are almost the same age, their attitude towards their learning process varies. And these classes are a source of inspiration to me not only when I plan their lessons but also during the teaching-learning process. I do my best to be flexible enough so as to adapt what I have planned for them to their attitude. 

No matter how much I insist in person and via Internet, I sometimes find it hard to make teenagers aware of the importance of developing independent learners' skills. I make use of strategies in class to help students study and improve themselves.

One of the groups I teach is supposed to be reviewing two units of their coursebook for a test but the tasks they do in class show they are not studying outside the classroom. So I decided to implement a task I designed on the spot thanks to the inspiration I got from my students. I assigned two pages from the units of the coursebook they were supposed to be studying to each student. The aim of the activity was to make students read, remember the information and share it with their partners, which would also help them develop fluency skills. 

The task was successful and my students seemed to enjoy it. How do you make students aware of the need to practise outside the classroom? I'd like to hear about your strategies.