Variety

(During the summer months, I like to take the A-Z Challenge and come up with words alphabetically and see how they apply to education. I think it’s a great exercise for teachers and students to give this a try.)

Again, I have a balancing act with adding variety in the class. I know that my students find success in structure but I want there to be some variety in order to keep the students engaged. Here are some ways that I can have variety and still have structure.

Without variety, students may become bored and not as successful. By introducing some variety, it will help to keep students engaged in learning. When students are engaged, there are fewer behavior problems.

Have the same routine of activities but change the topics.

Allow students to suggest topics that they want to learn more about.

Allow students a choice of activities (pick 3 out of the 4 or 5 choices).

From a list of 4 assessments, let students choose which assessment they want to do.

Allow students to choose how they want to share information that they researched.

Variety is a good thing to have because variety will always happen in everyone’s life. It is better to learn to adjust to variety while students have a support system. Warn students ahead of time of any changes to their “routine” so the change will be easier to adjust to.

How do you incorporate variety in the classroom? Please share.

Photo by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash