Challenge = Engagement

you can't assume engagement

The other day I was talking with a colleague and he was talking about all the work his students have to do before the semester's end next week.  He described the final projects and presentations the students are working on.  My question in response was "So what are you doing for your own engagement." We spend so much time focused on student engagement that it is worth a moment to examine our own.
Certainly as a teacher I have a number of external motivating factors, like my desire to stay employed.  I am motivated by my goal of helping students become better writers, but I have to admit I really enjoy being inspired and learning alongside my students.
For curriculum design this means I work in broad goals and change the "how" of reaching my goal sometime even between sections of the same prep on the same day.  I keep myself constantly working with new ideas about which tools I will ask the students to use to meet the learning objectives.

Engagement can depend on environment

My learning objectives have remained largely unchanged through a period of rapid tech integration.  By making sure I make choices about which tools to use in class based on meeting my learning goals, I can maximize my time and energy.  It seems to always come done to a race to learn as much as we can before June.
I keep myself in the game by learning new tools and developing new challenges, how do you do it?  Drop a note in the comments.