Using Choice Boards to Differentiate in the Classroom

In my first year of teaching, all of my students did the same assignment at the same time. Choices were limited. Maybe students could pick one of two extension activities at the end of reading a short story, but individual students working on different assignments of their choosing did not happen.

As I grew more experienced in the classroom, I also grew more comfortable with students making choices and working independently. As the teacher, I didn't have to have the control all of the time. 

When I did relax a little bit and hand some of that control over to my students, I realized I was also increasing the level of responsibility students had for completing their own work. When all of my students were doing the same thing at the same time, it required very little effort on the students' part.  Giving them choices meant now they had options, but they had to do the work individually rather than relying on the teacher or other classmates.

One of my favorite ways to give students choices is using choice boards.

Choice Boards: The Basics
A choice board is just what it sounds like, a board of choices. The choices might be questions to answer or activities to complete related to a short story read in English Language Arts, a concept in mathematics, a unit in science, or a time period in history. The possibilities are endless.

The formatting and directions for choice boards are also flexible. You could create a 3x3 board and ask the students to make "tic-tac-toe" by completing any three choices in a row, column, or diagonally. You could create a 5x5 board and ask students to make "BINGO" by completing any five choices in a row, column, or diagonally. You could also make a choice board of any size and require students to complete a certain number of choices from each row or column, or a total number from the board as a whole.

Using Choice Boards During Novel Units

Instead of requiring all students to answer the same questions as they read a whole class text, literature circle novel, or book club selection, you can use a choice board to offer a variety of questions and activities. 

For example, as my students were reading Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen, I created choice boards for every two chapters, four in total (it is a pretty short book). The choice boards were broken down into four columns of questions/activities marked "knowledge & comprehension," "application & analysis," "synthesis," "and "evaluation." As the column titles suggest, different questions/activities were different levels of difficulty.

For this type of choice board, I assign a certain number of choices per column. That number can be modified to meet the needs of special education students or when a student is absent from class. For that reason, at the top of each column it says "choose __"; students individually write in the number of choices I assign them. This also makes it easy to be flexible when we have a short week or unexpectedly miss a class period for a school event. Similarly, I created a set of choice boards for my Romeo & Juliet unit where students choose a set number of activities from the choice board as a whole, but I can adjust that required number and whether they are completed in class, for homework, or a combination of both.

Using Choice Boards for Homework Assignments

If students have the same kind of homework each night or week, such as independent reading or practice with spelling words, choice boards are a great way to mix things up.

To accompany their independent reading, students might have choices like describe the setting of your novel and draw a map to accompany your description, create a Venn diagram comparing the protagonist and the antagonist in your novel, or write a letter from one character to another explaining a conflict he is facing and the steps he is taking to try to resolve the conflict. All of these choices would apply to any book a student is reading. 

While creating this type of choice board might take some time and creativity, it would save you from creating and assigning homework each night, and with enough choices, this choice board could be used over and over throughout the year as students read different books. 

At the high school level, vocabulary exercises are a part of my students' homework. I use a root based vocabulary system of instruction and I created a homework choice board that students could use all year. This meant I only had to make copies once, though I kept extra copies in the classroom, and I never had to waste time discussing the students' homework assignment as it was the same each week: choose activities from your vocabulary homework choice board). I divided the choice board into four sections to appeal to students' different learning styles: practice/word relationships, writing, visualization, and movement/kinesthetic. To receive a free copy of this vocabulary homework choice board, sign up for my monthly newsletter here.

Using Choice Boards At the End of an Author Study

To wrap up an author study (reading several texts by and/or about the same author) or genre study (reading several texts within the same genre, i.e. mystery or historical fiction), students are often asked to write a culminating writing piece, perhaps an essay synthesizing information about an author and his writing style or defining the characteristics of a genre. Working through the writing process can take different amounts of time for different students, with some students requiring intense amounts of support. 

Using a choice board of activities in conjunction with the assigned essay allows students to work independently while you facilitate small group lessons throughout the writing process. The choice board activities must be activities students can truly complete independently or your small group lessons will face constant interruption. The activities must also be ones that students are motivated and excited to complete so that you don't have to constantly redirect students who are supposed to be working independently.

During a unit on Edgar Allan Poe, one of my favorite authors, my classes read one of his short stories, "The Black Cat," and one of his poems, "The Raven," as well as a series of nonfiction readings on the different possible causes of Poe's death. As a culminating writing assignment, students must select and defend one of the theories about his death. While I work one-on-one or with small groups of students to collect evidence, outline arguments, or craft rebuttal paragraphs, other students work on activities from their choice board, including writing their own tale of terror, creating a comic version of one of Poe's short stories, or recording a podcast of one of Poe's poems.

Using Choice Boards to Culminate a Unit

Sometimes at the end of a unit, I want to reinforce concepts, but also let students explore topics of interest to them. While having total free choice can be overwhelming, I also don't want to dictate a final product or project since student buy-in is much higher if they make the decision for themselves.

By the final week of my poetry unit, for example, students have been exposed to many different figurative language terms, sound and rhyme techniques, and forms of poetry. Instead of requiring all students to complete the same poetry project, I use a choice board to allow students to do an in-depth examination of topics of interest to them. Some students might opt to analyze additional examples of a certain type of poetry and write their own poem in that form or style while other students create a storyboard to accompany a favorite poem.

You can find all of my teaching resources that include choice boards here.

Get Organized & Stay on Top of Assignments With Homework Calendars

Each year I have tried something different for homework for these two reasons:

1. My students, at least too many of them, don't "do" homework. It doesn't seem to matter how much or little is assigned, how easy or difficult, how "fun" or not. (I teach ninth grade English in an urban area, where for a variety of reasons homework is not a priority for many students.)

2. As a teacher given $100 for supplies each year and no paper, making copies for five classes of thirty students doesn't make me feel good when those copies get stuffed into book bags, dropped in the hallway, left behind in the classroom, etc.

Year 1 was a short and sweet approach. Students were assigned a one page (front and back) vocabulary sheet for homework. The vocabulary, usually 10 terms, connected to the week's text. On Fridays, I gave students a quick multiple-choice vocabulary quiz to help hold them accountable for doing their homework.

Year 2, I stuck with the one page vocabulary homework, but started limiting the students' time for the vocabulary quiz to five minutes. If they did their homework, they got it done, no problem. If they didn't do their homework, the whole period wouldn't be wasted on a 10 question multiple-choice quiz. because I had smaller classes (my school had a limited number of novels), I also started assigning students independent reading as part of their homework. Sometimes students had a choice of novels, sometimes I selected one for them. Students were assigned a certain number of pages a week to read and had to complete a certain number of comprehension questions. At the end of each novel, students completed a project or essay.

Year 3, I moved to a different school and went back to just the one page vocabulary homework.

Year 4, I switched schools again. Same one page vocabulary homework, but I also wanted increase the amount of nonfiction my students were reading. I created a series of one page nonfiction articles connected to the themes of the texts (primarily fiction) being read in class. On the back side of each article, students had a choice of paragraph formats to use to respond to the article. The paragraph formats helped to support my struggling writers and I also printed a lower level version of the article for my students with really low reading levels.

My initial nonfiction article set has general high-interest topics for teens. I also created set of Holocaust related readings to accompany my unit on Night, a set of hero/journey readings to accompany my unit on The Odyssey, and a set of drama/film related readings to accompany my unit on Romeo & Juliet. I loved these nonfiction homework assignments and could see an improvement in the writing of the students who completed them, but unfortunately too many students weren't doing them, which meant a whole lot of paper was getting wasted.

Year 5, I thought I had THE solution. I decided to continue with vocabulary based homework, but did a complete 180 on how I taught vocabulary. Instead of using vocabulary selected from weekly in-class texts, I decided to teach root-based vocabulary. Each week students were assigned a root and five words that shared that root.

For homework, students selected three assignments per week from a vocabulary choice board. Each week, the students would have a new root and five new words (printed on a half sheet of paper), but the homework choices remained the same, which meant waaaay less copying and wasted paper. The choice board had 30-40 choice in the categories of practice/word relationships, writing, visualization, and kinesthetic/movement. Students were not allowed to repeat choices within a month.

I also created a class website where I posted videos related in-class concepts and topics. As part of their homework, students were asked to watch and respond to the videos. This presented additional issues. Many of my students don't have computers with internet access at home and the website didn't seem to work reliably on cell phones, so I had to offer alternatives to this online homework. I also had to monitor the students' posts and remember to assign the homework. My use of the class website as part of homework was spotty at best throughout the year.

This year, year 6, my homework routine changed for different reasons. I loved my root-based vocabulary from the previous year, but my school decided to purchase a vocabulary books for all four grades, and since we were spending the money on the books, we were expected to use them. I also wanted to incorporate independent reading again.

I knew I would have to find a way to keep both myself and my students accountable. Posting the assignments in class daily or weekly would be a waste of precious class time plus I could forget to do it, students could choose not to copy it down, and it would be a nightmare to keep up with students who were frequently absent. And that is when I came up with my brilliant idea, homework calendars!

Homework calendars are exactly what they sound like, a calendar of homework assignments. I printed a homework calendar for each month, broken down by week and then by day.

Homework calendars are awesome because:
1. Students always have their assignments even if they are absent, mentally absent, come late, go to the nurse's office, etc.
2. I can't forget to assign it.
3. No time is wasted copying it down.
4. It is easy for students to catch up on assignments and even work ahead if they want.
5. It makes homework assignments clear for parents, and can easily be emailed or given out at Back to School Night or parent/teacher conferences.
6. It can be created, copied, and handed out every few weeks or monthly.
7. You can make your homework calendar as detailed as you want and then send shorter messages via text using Remind.

Creating a homework calendar requires some advance planning, but is definitely worth it!

Simplify Parent and Student Communication with Remind

As teachers, our time is so precious because we always seem to have so little of it, yet so many things to accomplish, so you should know about Remind. It is a tool that will make communication with parents and/or students easier.

Wouldn't you love to be able to make less phone calls and contact all of your parents or students at once? Remind allows you to keep in touch with parents and/or students without them having your cell phone number or you needing theirs.

The sign up process is simple and you can use your Google login, so then there is no extra username and password to remember.

Before your users can sign up, you need to decide how many classes or groups you will have and create each one.

Because I teach high school, I have one class/group for all of my parents and then separate classes for each of the class periods I teach during the day (English 1 Period 1/2, English 1 Period 6, Creative Writing Period 4, English 1 Honors Period 7/8).

This allows me to send important messages to all of my parents at once about important dates and reminders (conferences, concerts, marking periods ending).

I set up separate classes for each period I teach so I could send out different messages as needed about homework, supplies, etc. You can always play around with just one class and add more as you go on.

Once you have created a class, there are two ways people can sign up and join that class. The first option asks the individual signing up to send a text message to the phone number listed with the message listed. Make sure the message entered is exactly what is displayed on the screen (yes they need to put in the @ symbol).

If done correctly, the service will send a text message back letting them know that enrollment was successful and asking for their name. After that, there is no reason to text that number again.

You may want to let parents and/or students know that that number is NOT your phone number and they cannot reach you through it. It is for sign-up purposes only.

You can print a PDF of this invitation to hand out to students or parents. I included it in my syllabus packet at the start of the year. You can also display it in class and give students time to sign up then or display it at Back to School Night or conferences for parents.

The second option is to encourage students and/or parents to sign up is by sending the invitation directly to their email. Simply list the email addresses of all of the individuals you want to include and the invitation with directions will be sent to them.

Once you have your classes all set up and people subscribed, on your home screen you will see all of your classes on the left and all of your subscribers on the right.

The top center is where you select who a message will be sent to (you can select multiple classes), write the message and either send it or schedule a day and time for it to be sent. The bottom center lists all of your sent and scheduled messages.

So what kind of messages do I send? To parents I send reminders about Back to School Night, report card conferences, upcoming school events (concerts, sporting events, etc.), and upcoming due dates for projects, tests, etc.

Because you can schedule the messages ahead of time means no last minute rush to notify parents of report conferences the next day. Schedule your message now, or schedule all of your messages for that kind of thing if you know the dates ahead of time, and forget about it.

To students, I send a nightly message about homework. Because I plan out my homework on a monthly/unit basis I also schedule these in advance in chunks at a time.

I also send out the occasional shout out, praise, or encouragement to a few students or to a class (you can't send messages to one individual).

Some other features that I haven't really tried out yet are the "stamps," attachments, and voice clips. When you send out a message or a message with a question, users can "stamp" to show their response. You can also attach photos, documents, or PDFs. Let's say you are reminding students and/or parents about an upcoming test; attach the review sheet to the message.

If you download the Remind app you can send voice messages, not just text messages. You don't have to download the app onto your phone though to use Remind; everything can be done online just as easily and the best part is that it is completely FREE.

I hope that you will try out Remind and that it will make at least one part of teaching easier for you!