Student Choice in the Online Classroom

Mar 23, 2021

This is the second post in a series about Fun in the Online Classroom. You can read the first post here and the third post here.

Teachers seem to be trying everything they can to make online learning engaging and help students learn. One way to give them ownership is to give them choice and one of the best and easiest ways to do that is with choice boards!

So, a choice board is great because it lets students decide how they want to demonstrate their knowledge on a topic. You can do this with any lesson in any class. You might be surprised at how great the ideas they come up with are!

How to Make a Choice Board

Step #1

Pick a lesson that you want to create a choice board for.

Step #2

Create a table in a document. I recommend 3x3 but you can do 4x4 or 5x5. Just remember that you have to come up with ideas for each box, and the bigger the table, the more ideas you have to come up with.

Also, decide how many each student has to do. I like to do a Bingo-type thing where they need to complete 3 in a row, column, or diagonal line. And I encourage students to go for a blank out for extra points.

Step #3

I like to pick categories for the boxes so that it is easier to sort out what kind of tasks the students can choose from.

Step #4

Time to come up with ideas for tasks. I try to think of the different modalities and make something that suits each of them. Comic strips are always good. Writing a song is a great one too. Kinesthetic or movement-based can be the tricky one. I have used yoga, or a movement game, or a scavenger hunt as options before.

Step #5

Finally, send it off to the students! When they turn in their work, I tend to grade on a quick-glance system. I take a glance at the things they turned in and if it looks like they got the concept, I give them full credit. If not, then I look more in-depth to assess.

Choice boards are a fantastic way for students to take ownership of their learning and choose how they want to show their understanding of the material.