Winter vacation is over, and students are returning to their classrooms for their second half of the school year. High school students, particularly seniors, will soon find an infamous "disease" starting to kick in: senioritis. 

For many, college applications and acceptance letters are starting to circulate, and this means that some high school seniors "have mentally checked out", according to an article on USNews.com.

How can teachers avoid having a classroom filled with checked out high school seniors? This article offers tips on how to do so provided by real teachers. 

"They start feeling the anxiety of the newness that's coming on, and I think what that does is trigger somewhat of an attitude once in while," said Stephanie Lint-Perez, a Spanish teacher at DeWitt High School in Michigan.

Lint-Perez said her students "are generally well-behaved, but the pressures of life after high school, along with cases of senioritis, can cause some students to behave unlike their usual selves."

"They tend to drift off, and some students may decide not to do certain things because they have already been accepted to college or have chosen a roommate, for example," she said. "They start to pick and choose and they start to put things on the back burner."

Lint-Perez said that "teachers can keep seniors interested in learning by making course work relevant and​ valuable to them." Another way is to make real-life connections in class to "let students take charge of their learning."

"There's a lot of choice-based tasks that I can assign and allow them to have that freedom to choose various activities or guided lessons," she said.

Other educators shared Lint-Perez's sentiments on Twitter. One user, Brianna Crowley or, @AkaMsCrowley, said that teachers "motivate the same as all year: make the learning relevant & authentic. Appeal to curiosity."

Another educator, Stacey Brown, or @MrsBrownNHS, said: "Relate. Make the work matter. Be flexible."

Justin Reese, history teacher at the J.P. McCaskey High School in Pennsylvania said "teachers should set high expectations and show their students they care about their success throughout the year to keep them motivated."

"The students may not care so much day in, day out about your subject, but they care about doing their best for you as an educator and preparing themselves for whatever is next," said Reese.

Read the full story and comment below. 

Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor