Student Choice
Overview
Providing students a voice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful. When students make choices about their learning and participate in instructional decisions, they are more engaged and intrinsically motivated. Helping students think about why they make choices can also foster Metacognition.
Example: Use This Strategy In in the Classroom
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how Reflex offers choice while still targeting the individual math skills a learner needs to practice. When learners are given the opportunity to choose the game they play, they are more likely to maintain engagement and develop their fact fluency.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Teacher Modeling & Support Strategies
Teachers support language development by using and providing vocabulary and syntax that is appropriately leveled (e.g., using simple sentences when introducing complex concepts).
Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory.
Building positive and trusting relationships with learners allows them to feel safe, a Sense of Belonging, and that their academic, cognitive, and social and emotional needs are supported.
Actively and authentically encouraging all students to seek support, ask questions, and advocate for what they believe in creates a safe space for risk-taking and skill development and supports a Sense of Belonging.
Teachers can help students understand that learning involves effort, mistakes, and reflection by teaching them about their malleable brain and modeling their own learning process.
Providing feedback that focuses on the process of developing skills conveys the importance of effort and motivates students to persist when learning.
By talking through their thinking at each step of a process, teachers can model what learning looks like.
Teachers sharing math-to-self, math-to-math, and math-to-world connections model math schema building.
Maintaining consistent classroom routines and schedules ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next.
Wait time, or think time, of three or more seconds after posing a question increases how many students volunteer and the length and accuracy of their responses.
