I have a confession to make. I started out my teaching career teaching gifted students in an inclusive program. This does not lend me “street cred” in the teaching community I realize. However, this experience provided me the opportunity to experiment with different teaching methods that I may not have tried in other circumstances. It also helped to color my classroom methodology as I worked with a wide variety of students in years to come. One of the many things that I came to realize was that although I needed to be prepared and have everything planned out, I did not have to control every facet of my students’ learning. I could allow them choice in how they wanted to share information and choice as to how they felt most comfortable presenting to the class. As a result of that, I had students who were enthusiastic about creating projects. I didn’t hear a chorus of “not another PowerPoint!”
It is a message I carry with me today as I work with teachers. We still need to provide support and guidance but we don’t always need to steer the car. When I collaborate with educators to develop projects I generally provide them with a sample template of a choice board. This board can be adapted to meet any needs of the classroom and to reflect the resources that are available. Oftentimes, people expect me to only include technology based projects in my options but honestly, I like to include an option for students to create handmade objects also or some type of performance. That is probably the option I would have selected growing up.
You do not need to be an expert in all of the items you put on your choice board either. Most of our students are able to figure out how to work the various technologies. (If not, that may be an excellent opportunity to pull in a resource teacher or have the student do a little research.) Providing choice also helps to require fewer resources. Instead of needing a computer lab to create a project you may only need 5 laptops and a few cameras. The upside to using a template with a table type format is that the students can circle what type of project they are creating and then turn it in to you. This will give you an opportunity to reserve the resources that will be needed. Feel free to contact me if you'd like for me to send you the choice board I created for my students.
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