Choices

I believe that we should give students choices. It helps them feel like they have some control over their lives. It doesn’t matter how old they are, but it helps their confidence level if they are able to have some control over their lives.

In my class, I like to give my students control over some assignments. We might do a group lesson so they learn about the topic and main ideas. Then I might have several assignments geared towards ability levels. Within the ability levels, I may give students a choice of two out of three different assignments. These assignments may be geared to different types of learning styles.

If students can do an assignment within their ability and that is their kind of learning style, they are more likely to complete the assignment. Not only will they complete the assignment, but they are more like to retain the information they learned, Students can feel proud of their finished work and find success in what they have done. This will lead to more confidence and more assignments that get completed. Like a snowball, the success they feel will help them improve their attitude and skills. Their ability levels may improve and so will the difficulty of their choices.

Of course, as the teacher, this takes a lot of pre-lesson planning. I like to do the front-end work so I can enjoy and observe the learning as it takes place. I can move around to individual students and help them according to their needs.

Eventually, I ask them for input on the choices that they would like to see. Sometimes I use their suggestions and sometimes I don’t but this lets them see that I value their opinions. Some of their suggestions may be something I hadn’t thought about doing and if they have an interest in it, it is worth giving it a shot.

One important thing I have to remember is that I can not give them too many choices. Too many choices can be overwhelming and cause them to not make a choice. They agonize over all the possibilities and waste too much time on the decision-making instead of the actual assignment. I try not to give more than three or four choices. This depends on the student and their ability levels. Lower ability levels seem to do well with just three choices. As they improve on ability, they can eventually increase to four choices. When I first start out, everyone only gets three choices.

I like to use a choice board. It can be created for individual students or for small groups. This is something tangible for them to look at and touch for those who are visual and tactile learners. I also read aloud the choices for the auditory learners.

Here are images of choice board examples.

How do you encourage decision-making? Do you use a choice board? Please share.

Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo on Unsplash