What does this section give Me?
1. The reasons that student choice is important
2. A process for student choice
3. Some tools that actually work on the High School level
4. Some examples of the way student choice were delivered
2. A process for student choice
3. Some tools that actually work on the High School level
4. Some examples of the way student choice were delivered
Why is It Important? Let's face it, not all students are going to be naturally interested in the content we teach. It's our job to find a way to make that content interesting. We can't just say you're going to learn it, and you're going to learn it this way. That's where student choice comes in. If you use creation assignments and you have them at the unit level, choice is a natural next step in the process. You can have several scenarios and choices for students to choose from, and if that does not work you can always craft one around student interest!
The ToolsSymbaloo and Symbaloo Lesson Plans: symbaloo.com lessonplans.symbaloo.com
Symbaloo at its core is digital bookmarking, but it can also be a fantastic way to present choice to students. You can organize things in a very visually pleasing format, and you can embed Google tools in where they pop up directly. This means you can put your Google Drive Doc directions in it, and easily organize. It also has HTML embed which allows you to increase your screen real estate as needed.
Symbaloo also released a new platform within the last year to take the need for choice to the next level. It's called Lesson Plans and it allows you to input things like questions, videos, and others on the tiles that are more tied to the learning experience. You can also create paths from the tiles. Blendspace: blendspace.com
Blendspace allows you to create a lesson where students follow a path of tiles that you can embed almost anything into. You can put questions, images, videos, docs, and a host of other things into the platform. Your Google Drive choices would embed easily!
You can share Blendspaces easily through a multitude of methods including QR codes and links. It also is easy to embed the Blendspaces on to your own blended learning platform! Wikispaces: wikispaces.com
Wikispaces can be a positive way to present simple choices. Wikispaces is a website that you can set up that anyone can edit. It can be a great way to present choice because you can embed almost anything on it and you can create separate pages for different students. On idea would be to create a choice checklist that corresponds with categories on your blended learning platform. Really, Wikispaces is a multi-use tool that can adapt to whatever need you might have.
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A Process If you follow the other steps in the process to a blended classroom, giving students choice is a natural progression. This also becomes a point where technology is vastly important. It helps organize that choice in a pleasing way. While all of these steps could be done without some blended learning platform, it is highly recommended that you start with that. You can find more information on that here.
The Steps in the Process
1. Kick start your blended learning platform and finish your scenarios
The ExamplesThis section focuses in on examples of choice presentation that teachers have used. Hopefully, by seeing it, you will be able to do it!
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