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Choice Boards w/ real-life application scenarios

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Choice Boards w/ real-life application scenarios

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Use MagicSchool AI, Eduaide.ai, Brisk, ChatGPT, Claude - whichever is your go-to - and ask to create a choice board with writing prompts OR simulations OR problems OR discussion topics.

Designing Standards-Based Choice Boards with AI https://catlintucker.com/2024/04/standards-aligned-choice-board/

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Letting high school students choose how they take notes in math and science classes can get them to engage more deeply with the content.

Maskot Images / Shutterstock

Giving direct instruction to my math and science classes often felt like a game of whack-a-mole. No matter what style of note-taking I chose to give them-even with employing best practices like chunking information and formative assessment-some of my students struggled to connect with the concepts.

A while ago I became aware of the many different ways my students preferred to be introduced to new information. Some thrived with videos, while others struggled to make sense of new concepts unless I lectured. When I lectured, some students struggled to internalize the information even when they actively participated. Some preferred to read slides and articles and learn what they needed from text.

Since I use choice boards regularly as a way for students to demonstrate their understanding, this year I decided to see what would happen if I applied choice boards to note-taking. Would my students learn new information even if I was not the one giving the information?

Benefits of Choice Boards for Notes

The most immediate effect of using choice boards for notes was the reduction in classroom disruptions. I no longer have to stop instruction to redirect students, wake them up, or ask why they aren't writing anything down. Students don't have to wait for me to finish talking to ask a clarifying question. They can, if they choose, hold a continuing dialogue with each other as they process the new information. (They're expected to keep their voices low, and the lab, where they work, has a wide enough area so they can move away from others, and others can move away from them.)

My students are more engaged with the material. They self-assess their understanding and stop to ask questions, something that many of them wouldn't do during a traditional lecture. Overall, students take more steps on their own to make sure they're understanding the new concepts.

I also observed growth in student achievement. My students are performing as well as or better than the previous year using the choice boards. Because of that, this is now my preferred method of giving notes.

Building the Choice Boards

At the beginning of the year, I gave my students a survey asking about their learning preferences and what types of activities reached them the best. I used this data, and prior experience, to build the activities on the choice board. Overall, my students preferred either a direct lecture from me, a video, or reading slides/text. I sometimes include inquiry-based activities, such as Math Medic or PhET lab simulations, for students who like to learn by noticing trends.

I rely on edtech tools, like Quizizz and Edpuzzle, to build checks for understanding into each choice so that students have timely feedback on their level of understanding. For my math classes, I make use of Desmos Classroom activities to guide students through concepts of graphical relationships. For my science classes, the chemistry section of Positive Physics helps with scaffolding questions and concepts.

Using edtech tools also allows me to build accommodations for my students who need them. I can deploy subtitles, allow reattempts of the work, and make use of read-aloud features. This ensures that all of my students are able to make any choice, regardless of disability or language acquisition.

At the bottom of my choice board I include an exit ticket activity that all students take, so that I can see student progress and compare the effectiveness of each note-taking method.

During Class

Save any questions for me until I am done with the direct teach.

You may work together, but you must keep your volume down so that those listening to a video or to my direct teach can hear.

You must work the full time. If you do not achieve at least an 80 percent on the note-taking activity, you must reattempt it.

If you are disruptive, you are choosing to finish the note-taking activity with me up front.

When I introduce the choice boards to my students, I remind them to make the choice based on how they learn best, not what their friend is doing. Then, I set the following expectations:

I direct students to different areas of the room depending on their choice of activity to minimize noise interference, which also allows them to work together with others who chose the same activity. They're free to switch between different methods during the period if they realize that their choice isn't working for them, or to join me while I'm working examples on the board before returning to their original choice.

Once I'm finished with the direct teach, I circulate around the room to check progress and answer any questions the students couldn't resolve on their own. If it's a common question, I'll answer it for the whole class. I remind students to complete the exit ticket in the last few minutes of class.

Following Up

After class, I look at exit ticket data to find the weak areas in student understanding. I take steps to reteach them, either through a brief whole group instruction, through an inquiry activity, or by selecting activities for another choice board. This makes the next day's activities more cohesive and meaningful to my students, who engage more, knowing that I'm responding to their needs. I also use the data to determine if there were weak spots in the video or slide deck and take steps to revise them for the following year.

The choice board remains posted in Google Classroom for students to refer back to, and I post a video of my direct teach and/or notes. This assists students who were absent that day and serves as a review resource on a later assessment.

I recommend trying this with a less difficult lesson first and keeping your choice board simple: three choices and an exit ticket. As your students get accustomed to doing this, you can branch into more difficult lessons or add more choices.

Giving students choice in their note-taking will make the practice more meaningful to them, ultimately enriching their learning experience so they can achieve more.

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Setting Up Choice Boards in Math and Science

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Letting high school students choose how they take notes in math and science classes can get them to engage more deeply with the content.

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In groups ss brainstorm a few exam Qs together. On a reusable poster- They look at exam Qs particularly command terms, no of marks per Q, write out key concepts, key words and then a rough n ready note form answer. They they review their group and another group to see if they missed anything. Then individually they write their answer, taking a bit more planning time than they usually fo to give a succinct answer without extra writing - saving time. Review someone else’s answer and repeat / start another Q.

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Create 10-20 hexagons with key ideas on them (or have students create the hexagons)-- as groups, they need to rearrange the hexagons to connect the ideas with each other.

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Sponsored by Teaching Channel and UL Xplorlabs

While hexagonal thinking is not new in the world of business and innovation, it's just making its way into the classroom. It's a method for considering the connections between ideas and finding the nuances in those connections. If you're looking for a fresh framework for discussion and critical thinking, this may be just the thing.

How it Works

When you place an idea on a hexagon, it has six sides where connections could be made to other ideas. When you place many ideas on many hexagons, the discussion about where to connect what will be different every time.

Hexagons for the Vietnam-War era
(click all images for a close-up view)

If you gave the same seven idea cards to seven people, do you think you'd get the same seven webs of interconnected hexagons? Would the people explain the connections in the same way?

Nope.

And really, that's the beauty of hexagonal thinking. It provides a springboard for a totally creative discussion. When you give a small group of students a deck of hexagons and ask them to connect them however they choose, every group will come up with a different web for different reasons. Along the way they'll hopefully question each other and dig deep into the concepts on the cards, arguing about which idea connects more to an important concept and which example deserves one of those precious six sides.

The Step-by-Step

Let's imagine you've got your students in small groups, and each group is staring at a beautiful deck of hexagons.

Now what?

I recommend you kick off this activity for the first time by giving directions something like this:
Once you have your set of hexagons, it's time for your group to begin making connections between them. Your conversations now will be about showing how and why you think the different ideas and options connect. Everyone will see things differently, and that's OK. Just keep talking until you find the connections that stick. As you discuss your ideas, use the text to find supporting evidence for why you think your connections are strong ones. Each hexagon can connect to up to six others. Arrange and rearrange until you feel you have the strongest hexagon web in place that you can. Then begin explaining your connections with connection arrows, writing in why you have created intersections between key hexagons. Everyone in the group will contribute differently, and that's OK. You need to have people listening and moving pieces to create the web, people debating, people asking questions. By the end of your discussion, you should have an interconnected web of concepts along with clearly explained connections. If you're working with paper hexagons, tape or glue them down to another sheet of paper to secure them, or take a photo of your finished web. If you're working digitally, submit your two slides: the finished hexagon web, followed by the slide with your explanations.
There's a lot of room here for students to participate in their own unique ways. For me, part of the point of the activity is for students to see that everyone can take on different roles that matter.

Two Examples

Let's take a look at what this might look like in your classroom. In this case, I'll share digital examples created in Google Slides, since you may well be leading your discussions and small group activities via online channels this year. But paper hexagons are equally wonderful when you can use them.

Example 1: English Language Arts

First let's take a look at a hexagonal thinking discussion for an English class, wrapping up a unit on 1984.

Here's the set-up, with the terms listed in individual (moveable) text boxes.

Now students can discuss the placement of their terms/hexagons. In this case, rather than shifting paper hexagons around, they will go into the Google Slide, then drag and drop their terms across the slide and into the web of hexagons as they decide where to place them.

Now that the students have made their connections as they wish, they need to explain their choices. This can take place in many ways:

Students could record arguments for one or two connections on a tool like Flipgrid,

Students could write down their analysis.

Groups could collaborate to write explanations for several of their connections or present them back to the class.

Take a peek at what the written explanations look like for the web pictured above. In this case, students are sharing five explanations, but you could adjust that to suit your needs. Some connections are always going to be more interesting than others - the ones that generate the most debate, the surprising ones, the ones where three key sections link in one place. Have students write or present about the key connections, rather than about every single one.

Example 2: Science

Now let's take a look at how this might look in a science class. Imagine you're looking back over a unit on global warming, and helping students review the big ideas.

Here's the set-up: For this version, students can move the hexagons as well as the terms, creating any number of different webs. Then they use the connection arrows to point to the intersections they are going to explain in detail.

Student groups discuss the possibilities, dragging the hexagons and terms into place as they go. The final product could look one hundred different ways.

Once they have their web created, they make their explanations.

Creating Your Hexagonal Thinking Decks

You can create decks of hexagons with the terms already inside (let your students help you cut them out!) or print blank hexagon sheets and invite student groups to brainstorm the concepts to put inside before their discussion.

No matter how you create them, you want the hexagon decks to be filled with the key ideas of your recent class work, as well as interesting ties across disciplines and to the modern world. Hexagonal thinking makes it easy to cross disciplines and bring relevant modern connections into the discussion.

Let's say you're creating a hexagon deck for Jason Reynolds' book, Long Way Down. You'll fill it with characters, themes and style elements, but also with figures from the news, current political movements, similar books, and background information about the author.

Now imagine you're creating a deck for a unit covering an artistic period. You can put in key terms and artists, but also important authors and political figures of the period, and artists and movements of today that connect back.

As for making the shapes themselves, there are lots of time-saving options, whether you want to use digital hexagons or paper ones.

Digital Hexagons

Get access to your free copy of the digital hexagonal thinking toolkit featured above right here.

Create your own digital hexagons with PowerPoint or Google Slides by following these instructions:

Paper Hexagons

Use this online hexagon generator, created by Pam Hook.

Print and laminate these free rainbow hexagons, then add concepts with dry erase markers for quick discussions.

Print blank sheets of hexagons (you can easily create these in any size using the shapes tool in PowerPoint) to give out to small groups of students, then ask them to generate key terms, ideas, connections to other disciplines, connections to the modern world, etc. on their hexagons and cut them out. Then have groups switch decks so they are discussing a fresh list of ideas.

Create your own hexagon templates with terms you can change up whenever you want to do a hexagonal thinking discussion. Cut them out while watching New Girl on Netflix, or make the first step of the discussion in class to cut out the hexagons while beginning to discuss how they will connect.

A fun addition to any paper deck is a set of connection arrows. Print a few bubble arrows (again, the PowerPoint shapes tool makes it easy) on paper for students to put in at key intersections. Have students fill them in with their explanation of the connection. Sticky notes will also work well.

Wondering how to grade this?

There are a few ways you could grade hexagonal thinking. You could have everyone write a short reflection at the end about their contributions, and grade that. You could use it as a springboard into a writing assignment, asking students to explain and argue for key connections from the discussion, then grade that. You could have students present about a key connection on Flipgrid. Easy.

But I want to suggest a slightly more complex option too. Recently I interviewed Sarah Fine, co-author of In Search of Deeper Learning. One of her findings, after years of study across American high schools, was that we rarely ask students to truly collaborate in our core subjects, so we don't really create a culture of interdependence among them. They don't get to use their individual gifts to contribute to a final product created by the team, although that is often what real-world projects look like. Instead, we favor what she calls "lockstep learning." Everyone must do the same thing, separately.

So maybe for hexagonal thinking, you grade the final group web. And you ask the kids to share about how their different strengths allowed them to contribute to the final product.

Maybe some kids are super brainstormers, coming up with lots of great terms and ideas for what to put on the hexagons. Maybe one or two students in the group are great at lettering and drawing. They could create beautiful visual representations of the terms and ideas. Maybe some students shine at leading discussion. Maybe some are natural at making spatial and visual connections, and can help move the hexagons around as they listen to the group. Maybe some are excellent listeners, and can be taking notes about the connections based on what they hear from others. Maybe some are good mediators, who can help find common ground and calm down heated debates when discussion gets intense.

If you go this route, I really think it's worth discussing in advance what project teams are like in the workplace, and how people contribute in different ways. Then, at the end, you might let kids write a short paragraph about how they contributed based on their own strengths and skills, and whether they were happy with the way the group dynamics turned out.

Variations and Additions

Individuals or Partners

This would certainly work as an individual assignment or a prompt for partners as well. But with a small group, you'll get more perspectives on where to place what, which can be nice. You might consider giving students the option to work alone, with a partner, or in a group.

Adding Visuals

If you and your students are fans of sketchnotes or one-pagers, you can always add a visual layer to your hexagons. Invite students to illustrate their concepts with representative imagery and add quotations from their texts to bring more meaning for each idea into the conversation.

This is certainly not necessary, but adds dimension to the discussion and the eventual display of the concept web.

Hexagonal One-Pagers for Long Way Down

Gallery Walking

Once your students have completed their webs, you can do a gallery walk to see each other's concept webs and check out the connections their peers have made (this can be done online through a collaborative Google slides presentation), or have each group in turn present briefly back to the class about some of their most interesting connection points. The hexagons that caused the most debate will probably be the most fun to share back, and everyone will get to see how others mixed and matched the same hexagons in unique ways.

When you bring hexagonal thinking into your classroom -whether that's online or in person-you bring a fresh spark of energy to discussion. Your students will see things in new ways as they seek to connect wide-ranging ideas. If you're finding it difficult to get kids talking this year as they transition into new scenarios, you're definitely not alone. Hexagonal thinking just might be the tool you're looking for to help your classes over this transition and back into their critical thinking zones.

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Hexagonal Thinking: A Colorful Tool for Discussion

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If you've been looking for a fresh way to get students thinking outside the box, this may be just what you need.

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Students create a review summary with key points for each unit such as key definition, important chemical equation/ observations / calculations. Restructuring and categorizing  information instead of just copying down the notes help students to compare and contrast between the units.
They also create questions to share with their classmates. They are to create the answer keys and release the answer key only after the classmates complete the question.

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I use a self management ATL: Reflection which I get the students to use after a review lesson. They identify what they know, don't know or understand and what they still feel like they need to study more.
I collate all the information and then create a google slides with the concepts that the students have identified. I provide the students with a grid that they use to fill in the key concepts they feel less confident with. they can pick and choose which sections they want to review based on their earlier reflection.

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Unit topics and questions. Split the class into teams so they are competing against other students. More engaged that way.

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You can create or have your students create questions and answers and then PLAY quiz, quiz, Trade for as many rounds as you want to review!

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To add structure to the process of finding a partner, divide the class into two equal groups. Have one group make a circle and face out. Have the other group make a circle around the first group and face in. Students in both circles should stand face-to-face with the person across from them.

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Before I give out a study guide to my students, I have them create their own study guide:
- what concepts and topics they need to review,
- ways they might review them
- resources they have available to them for studying.

Then they share with a partner and add to their review list. Share study strategies that work for them.
Creating their study guide is a form of review in itself.
Think-Pair-Share.
Then I share my study guide with them.

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Incredibly interactive. Students who struggled to stay awake in Biology class were completely engaged in this activity! Materials: 1 whiteboard per student, markers, erasers/paper towel.

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For IB exam study, Kognity's Exam-Style Review problems are outstanding. They give the needed material review in the correct exam-style format, and they include step-by-step explanations. This works well for both the really studious kids who want to nail their practice, and the less-motivated students who are at least willing to read through the solutions.

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Review is such an important part of the learning process. It is a vital process for converting short term memory to long term knowledge. One way I encourage review in my class is through Kahoot. I make ten questions by myself and have students review by playing it once through. Students love the game feel of Kahoot providing them with instant feedback-- a huge part of our students' lives. However, I don't just let them use my questions. After playing it once through, I have them look through their vast compilation of notes and students must create two Kahoot questions and possible answers on their own. I encourage students, when making the questions, to make them difficult that way they will only get the point. This encourages students to create questions on all aspects of the topic being reviewed, not just the super common or popular parts of the unit. Creating questions pushes students to think like a teacher. Taking knowledge learned from the class time and applying it to creating two multiple choice questions. After students have created their questions I will have them enter their questions and answers into my kahoot, or if it's getting close to the end of class I will enter them in myself for next class. We will play it together for the next few classes and I allow students do it independently as well.

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This is one version: I do a simpler version, projecting terms on the screen, and 2 teams are lined up. The first person has the fly swatter and has to listen to the description and swat the correct term. Have your strong students say the descriptors! Clarify that this is a non-contact game - no hitting one another and no blocking :)

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Laura  Randazzo – Solutions for the Secondary Classroom

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Ready to move beyond tired Jeopardy slides? Try a few rounds of the Flyswatter Game, a no-fail way to keep teens active and excited about test prep.

Six Easy Steps:
1. Create a list of review questions. I usually write at least 40 questions so everyone will have at least two chances to physically get up and play, but the team component helps every student be engaged for every question so you don't actually need 40 questions for the game to be effective. Even just 20 questions would work in a pinch.

2. Post answer sheets around the room. Recently, I used these character name sheets from The Odyssey to help my freshmen review for their test. Colorful paper helps the answer sheets stand out from regular wall decor. (A ream of hot pink in the photocopy room? Score!) I made my sheets fancy with a frame and bold font, but you could just handwrite the characters' names with a dark marker and be done more quickly.

3. With masking tape, make a box in the middle of the room.

4. When class begins, break students into two teams. I dangle two bonus points for every member of the winning team as the prize, which always guarantees total buy-in from the class while making next-to-no difference in the gradebook. (Shh...don't tell 'em that the points don't matter much.)

5. Give each team a flyswatter.

Wait, these old ones are thrashed. Give me a second and let me run to the store...

That's better. Use two different colored swatters so you'll be able to easily determine which team wins each round.

6. Finally, game time! Each team sends one player to stand in the masking-tape box with his/her flyswatter. After I read the clue/review question, the two students race around the room to be the first to swat the correct answer sheet. The first one to touch the sheet with the flyswatter wins a point for his/her team. Teams are encouraged to help their player find the correct answer by pointing the way to the correct sheet.

WARNING: This game can get loud, so you might want to warn your neighbors the day before you play or institute a no-shouting rule. Also, I always announce the no-touch policy before we play - no pushing, shoving, blocking, or swatting an opponent. Failure to follow this rule results in a loss of point/s to the offending player's team. It's supposed to be a non-contact game, people.

I have print-and-play flyswatter games for The Odyssey, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, and To Kill a Mockingbird available, but feel free to create your own set for any title. This simple-to-make game works for any unit of study, including grammar and vocabulary. Now, let's have a little fun getting ready for final exams!

Teach on, everyone!

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Ready to move beyond tired Jeopardy slides? Try a few rounds of the Flyswatter Game, a no-fail way to keep teens active and excited about test prep. Six Easy Steps: 1. Create a list of review questions. I usually write at least 40 questions so everyone will have at least two chances to physically get...

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Create sentences, statements, or structures that contain errors for students to identify and correct. This exercise allow collaboration and idea sharing among students, which can lead to high engagement. It also provides teachers with insight into student misconceptions and areas for review.