“When are we ever going to use this? I hate worksheets! Why can’t we do something fun?”
Are these things you hear in your classroom regularly?
Here’s a few fun way to incorporate student choice in your classroom, WITHOUT making more work for yourself!
1. Choice in Practice
Having different assignment formats of the same questions/problems allow students to complete the same problems but via different avenues. Have the same problems or problem types available as different types of assignments so students can choose what they want to do as a practice assignment. I do this in Canvas and usually have at least 3 options available that can include an ALEKS assignment, a self-checking google sheets or google slides assignment (grab a free self checking activity for algebra 1 here! or check out this one for geometry here!), a paper assignment, or a canvas quiz as an assignment. Students choose what they want to do then submit their final practice product on canvas to the original assignment. It does take some getting used to for students to remember to screenshot their score at the end of the ALEKS assignment and go back and submit it. However, because we start this at the beginning of the year, students get used to having to submit their assignment on canvas to make sure they get credit. My canvas assignments with student choice usually look something like this:
2. Flexible seating
Flexible seating can be a huge way to offer student choice in your classroom. Flexible seating can mean anything from different spaces to sit at like bean bags, stools, high stools or tables. (Pro tip: check Facebook marketplace and your local buy nothing groups for free furniture you can bring into your classroom! I got 9 tables from a local business that was switching their office furniture for free because they posted it and I told them I was a teacher looking for new seating options in my classroom!) Flexible seating doesn’t have to be new furniture, it can also just be as simple as allowing students choice in WHERE they sit in whatever furniture you have in your classroom. This can be an earned award or a day thing (like “freestyle Friday”)
3. “show what you know”
We all know that each test or quiz we take can’t possibly assess every single thing we’ve taught in our classroom. But how do we know that students have mastered that topic or how do we know what exactly students are studying to prepare for these assessments? I like to incorporate a “show what you know” portion of the test, where I leave an open ended question of “what else did you study (or what else do you know) about this topic that I didn’t assess you on?” and allow students to essentially brain dump all the things they know about the topic. Doing this will not only allow you to see IF or HOW students are studying, but will also show you if they are studying the RIGHT things. Additionally, this mini brain dump at the end of the test might help pull some information out that will allow them to go back and say “oh yeah I DO know how to do that!”
*Bonus tip* Student choice for assessments
Looking to incorporate student choice for assessments? Check out my blog post about 4 ways to have students show what they know that aren’t a traditional test!
Are you going to try any of these? Let me know in the comments or send me an email: contact@funwithalgebra.com. I’d love to hear from you!
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