Student Choice

This fall, I focused on teaching my students research skills. They learned research strategies, understanding search engines and domains, analyzing sources and evaluating information, and analyzing graphics as sources of information.  These and other research skills they learned are vital skills in today's society of seemingly limitless information, and misinformation. Students completed an I-search report to demonstrate how well they could apply the skills they learned. What did I do to encourage the students' use of the skills, rather than just using Wikipedia, or the top three or four sources that popped up when students Googled a topic? I gave them options for what they could research. Students' choices ranged from changing a car muffler to the Ebola virus to the importance of an Ivy League education to becoming a writer to Shailene Woodley. By allowing students a choice of topics, I hoped they would be inclined to use the best research skills possible because they cared about their subjects.

Giving students choices in their learning is used to increase their motivation to learn. Students feel empowered, and thus are engaged, want to complete work, and perform better. Critics of student choice conjure images of free-for-all classrooms, with a lot of interaction, enthusiasm, and activity, but very little learning. And it may be that some well-intended teachers are giving students free rein, and thus running around their classrooms like clowns in a circus act. But not all teachers are doing this, yet they're still providing students with choices that increase their learning.

One way teachers allow choice is giving students options for subjects, or topics, about which to complete an assignment. The topics or subjects from which the students may choose are ones the teacher has selected because of their appropriateness to the type of product the students are learning to generate or related to the unit of study. The I-search report described above is an example. Or in a health class, students must research an addictive substance consumed by people, and they can choose between alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine. The choices in both examples lead either to employing similar skills or to understanding similar concepts.

Teachers are also allowing for choice of products students make to show knowledge of subjects or skills. For example, in a unit on cells, the teacher’s final assessment is a computer-based project, rather than a test. The three options the teacher gives students are to create a digital story that combines images, text, and narration in a series of frames, a Glog, which is essentially an electronic poster that can include images, text, video, and audio, or a Web page, where visitors learn about cells by reading text and accessing images and video via different links on the page. Or in a technical education class, the students must demonstrate their skills at cutting, smoothing, and finishing wood, so the teacher gives them options of building a bookcase, an end table, or a footlocker. In each of these cases, there are set expectations, but students have alternatives for how to exhibit their knowledge.

Students spend a lot of time in class either analyzing or applying the concepts and skills they learn during direct instruction. One way teachers provide for student choice during these times in class is through learning menus. A learning menu is a collection of choices students have for learning activities that engage them in material. The learning menu a teacher creates usually offers options that address either different learning styles or levels of understanding. Some teachers present learning menus either in restaurant-menu style, with appetizers, entrées, side dishes, and desserts, or as tic-tac-toe boards. Students are given directions for how to choose the activities to complete while engaging with the material, such as complete two appetizers, one side dish, one entrée, and one dessert, or perform either three horizontal or diagonal tasks in a row to make a successful tic-tac-toe threesome. 

For example, consider a tic-tac-toe learning menu for reading a short story that addresses understanding at different levels. In the first column are three comprehension activities, in the second, three analysis activities, and in the third, three evaluation activities:

Accurately describe one character, using at least three descriptive words	Explain who is the protagonist of the story, using four details to support your determination	Judge how much the protagonist changes over the course of the story, including four details from the story to support your judgment
Accurately complete a plot outline of the story with seven important events, including four events in the rising action, the climax, and two events in the falling action	Explain the causes and effects of one conflict a character experiences, identify two causes and two effects	Judge how well a character or characters resolve a conflict in the story, using four details from the story to support your judgment
Accurately describe the setting of the story, including at least seven details that show the time and place of the story	State the central theme of the story and provide four details from the story which show this to be the theme	Judge how logical a character’s motivation for one action is, using four details from the story to support your judgment

With learning menus, students have choices for the activities they complete, but they hone their understanding of the concepts the teacher wants.

It's important for middle school and high school students to learn effective note taking in preparation for college, where large amounts of reading must be completed and understood between classes and in preparation for exams. Another way teachers are using choice in public schools today is teaching students several effective forms of note taking and then allowing them to choose how they will take notes. Summarizing is one choice students have. Students capture, in their own words and in briefer form than the text, the main ideas, details, or events from the reading. Students may also choose double-column notes. A page is divided vertically, with the left-hand column taking up one third of the page and the right-hand column the other two thirds. The student writes the first topic or main idea in the left column at the top of the page. Then in the right column the student writes pieces information, examples, and vocabulary related to the topic or idea. When the student reaches the next topic or idea in the reading, he writes it in the left column lower on the page than the notes in the right column about the previous topic. Then the student proceeds from there down the page in the right column. A third choice for taking notes is graphic organizers. Students use series of bubbles or boxes connected by arrows or lines, which visually represent the thinking in the text, such as a flow map for narration or process, a multi-flow map for cause and effect, or a thematic map for main idea with supporting points and details. A fourth option for taking notes is annotations. Students mark parts of a reading with symbols that have different meanings, such as a rectangle around key content vocabulary, a double underline for important points, and a question mark for confusing information. Students must learn to take notes, which take effort to do well, but by giving students effective choices for how to take notes, the task seems less onerous to them.

Everyone must make choices about their futures, what they want to accomplish. Effective adults set goals for themselves, and teachers who allow students to choose goals for their learning serve the children well by teaching them a life-long skill for success. A teacher allows a student to set one or two goals for what she wishes to learn or accomplish during a particular unit of study. The teacher and student agree upon what constitutes successful accomplishment of the goal(s). Then, part of the student’s final grade is based upon her progress toward reaching the goal. One way teachers are helping students choose goals is to review work from previous units and giving the student a choice for something to focus on that was weak in a previous piece of work. For example, let’s say that in a student’s first report he failed to correctly spell several homophones and had numerous run-on sentences. So, the teacher and student negotiate that the student will correctly spell 100% of homophones in the new report. The student is still responsible for run-on sentences as well, and they will be counted into his grade for mechanics, but the homophones are a separate grade, his goal grade. Another way teachers are giving students choices for goals is to provide them with a list of objectives to choose from which are usually stretch goals—activities completed, or skills or concepts mastered—that go beyond the material taught to the whole class. In both cases, students have some say in what they choose to learn, but the goals are related to the material taught in class, and the teacher is involved and has say over what the students learn.

Student choice, in reasonable doses, is good pedagogy, and teachers today are effectively allowing students choices in classes while still maintaining control over the situations. The keys to effective student choice are limited numbers of choices and teachers being the originators, or supporters of students in the creation, of the choices. 

Thank you,

Brendan