Choice is Best

In my last blog post I asked the question, "Who's driving in our classrooms?" The question is really about who is the one making the educational choices and learning decisions. In order to engage our students and give them the ownership they need to feel valued, it should be our students doing the driving, while the educators are helping navigate and coaching them along the way.

While I think this model of teaching and learning sounds great, I am having a hard time envisioning it in action in my classroom on a daily basis. The biggest obstacle I see right now is that I mostly teach 6th grade students. It's honestly frightening to try and trust them behind the wheel! They just don't have the experience yet. But I want to see them so engaged with the material and the learning journey that they get excited about science and see how valuable learning can be.

So, I'm continuing on my own learning journey, trying to implement student choice into my lessons and giving them the ability to shown their learning in a personalized way. But where do I go from here?



One blogger I follow, John Spencer, advocates for choice menus as a way to give students ownership in their learning in Taking Choice Menus to the Next Level for Student Ownership. I've heard, and used, choice menus as a way to allow students to demonstrate their learning, but John explains how they can also be used to direct students in what and how they are learning. Take a look at the table he provided in his blog. For me, this was the piece that was missing.

From John Spencer's Blog Taking Choice Menus to the Next Level for Student Ownership

Looking at his examples, I can envision making something like this to cover different parts of a standard. Each part would be a different learning target that the student can choose from, a few different resources to learn the content and finally, choice on how to present their learning. It seems a lot more structured to me than what I previously envisioned student-directed learning to be.

I can easily see that the benefits of this type of teaching and learning goes beyond just student engagement. As teachers, we are trying to instill life skills that transcend our content areas and giving them choices in their learning is one way we can do this. As Heather Wolpert-Gawron states in her article Why Choice Matters to Student Learning,

"We need students to learn how to make decisions, how to weigh options, and how to advocate for their opinions. Therefore, if we are to help develop students into citizens, we need to include choice as a vital strategy toward that goal."

I'm convinced that more opportunities for students to exercise choice is good practice. I'm inspired to create more lessons the incorporate this. But if I'm honest, I do feel a little overwhelmed by the time it will take to put this all together.