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https://www.americanprogress.org/article/elevating-student-voice-education/

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Why Choice Matters (research collection)

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Why Choice Matters (research collection)

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Why Choice Matters to Student Learning | KQED

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Giving students choice in how they learn and show their knowledge gives them greater ownership over the process.

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My kids participate in an amazing hands-on learning experience every summer. It's called home. It's where they write stories, paint pictures, go on expeditions, visit parks, read books, and build things with duct tape and cardboard.

For the entire summer, they own the learning process. There are no tests, no benchmarks, no curriculum maps, and no bell schedules. It is an educational anarchy, where they tear down the walls between ideas and subject areas as they make and tinker and explore and curate the learning on their own terms.

Don't get me wrong. It's not perfect. Just yesterday they were at each other's throats over "creative differences." They have had moments where they complained about boredom, only to discover, minutes later, that boredom actually leads to creative breakthroughs. They have had days where they walked away from a project in frustration and binge-watched Netflix.

And yet . . .

They are developing into life-long learners. They already view themselves as geeks who can figure out anything over time. They pursue creative work with passion. Yes, that passion sometimes leads to arguments. Our home vacillates between looking like Phineas and Ferband VH1 Behind the Music. But most of the time, it leads to a state of flow, where they are lost in their work. Most of the time, it looks more like Phineas and Ferb.

In a little over a month, they will return to school with the bell schedule and the benchmark tests and the prep packets. While I realize that schools cannot operate under the educational anarchy of summer, I can't help but wonder what it would look like to empower students with more choice and agency in their learning.

Student choice is more than simply choosing a topic. It is about empowering students through the entire learning process. This is especially true in classrooms that embrace creativity, design thinking, and project-based learning. Here are a few of the ways we can incorporate student choice:

1. Let students choose the topic. When I first had students blog, I would post a writing prompt on the projector. However, when I had students explore real blogs, they pointed out that outside of school, bloggers write about topics they care about. So, I told them to choose a topic or theme. They could create foodie blogs, sports blogs, gamer blogs, etc.

2. Let students ask the questions. I believe students should question answers as often as they answer questions. This is why inquiry is such a critical component of design thinking. Students need to move from awareness to curiosity in a way that will fuel their creative thinking.

3. Let students decide the content. I love sustained silent reading. I get it. It's old school. It won't make the list of trendy new maker space learning. However, it works. A few years ago, I taught 8th grade self-contained. The school librarian and the upper grade teachers had cultivated this love of silent reading. So, when we went to the library, it was like going to a candy store.

4. Let students pick the materials and resources. In design thinking, students work through an ideation phase and then begin building a prototype. I love the idea that they guide not only the concept of what they will create but they also figure out what materials they will use in order to build their prototype. This goes beyond physical products. In digital content, they can choose what applications they will use and what type of media they will work with. When designing an event or a service project, they can determine the venue, the materials, and the resources.

5. Let students choose the strategies. When I think of the most tedious things kids experience in school, there is a high likelihood that they don't get a chance to choose the strategies. Take close reading. The rigid approach says, "use these symbols and follow this recipe." Students focus on doing things the "right way" and they fail to make sense out of the actual text.

6. Let students choose the scaffolding. I remember requiring students to use a set of scaffolding for the research process. A handful of students loved it because they needed it. The rest of the students viewed the scaffolding like a cage. I should have treated the scaffolding as an optional resource that they could access when they found it necessary.

7. Let students choose the format. When possible, allow students to choose the format for their creative work. It might be a video, a podcast, or a blog post.

8. Let students choose the audience. When students define the audience, they are able to clarify what they are doing and how they are going to do it. This honors student agency.

9. Let students choose the groups. This is the most controversial. People will often point out that in the real world, you don't always get to choose your groups. I get that. But when you work on a cool, voluntary collaboration, you often get to choose your groups. In my experience, our most functional groups were the ones where students worked with their friends. At first, they were too social. But then the challenge and the excitement of the tasks kicked in and they were able to tap into their mutual trust and go deeper in their work. While this might not be necessary for every project, it is something teachers can try out.

10. Let students manage the projects. This was the hardest thing for me to let go of. However, I believe that project management is a powerful, transferrable skill. Students need to learn the art of project management. Over time, I have learned to allow students to own the project management and to build their own systems to monitor their progress.

For all the talk of the "guide on the side," the truth is that guides are still guides. Even in a student-centered classroom, the teacher is still the expert. There are times when limiting choices actually increases creative thinking. Students work within the constraints to find solutions that push divergent thinking. Moreover, there are times when students don't have as much prior knowledge in an area and you, as the teacher, will expose them to new ideas, approaches, and content that they might have otherwise ignored.

However, when we incorporate choice, students own the learning process. We honor their agency and empower them to become the life-long learners we want them to be. At some point, they will leave the classroom and they won't have a guide right there by their side. They will have to take charge and make decisions about their own learning. This is why student choice is so critical.

When I embraced the idea of student choice, I had a ton of questions:

What about the standards? What about the curriculum map? What about the test?

Do I have permission to do this? What will my principal think?

What are the dangers in student choice? What about the whole idea of the "paradox of choice?"

If I embrace student choice, won't things get crazy? How do I manage all of this chaos?

How do I assess the learning if students are choosing to do such different things?

Should I try something like a Genius Hour?

Over a decade later, I am still thinking through those ideas. I don't pretend to have all the answers. However, I plan to share what I've learned along the way in a series on student choice.
Here are some resources I've developed that you might find helpful:

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10 Ways to Incorporate Student Choice in Your Classroom

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My kids participate in an amazing hands-on learning experience every summer. It's called home. It's where they write stories, paint pictures, go on expeditions, visit parks, read books, and build...

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Personalized Learning: Empowering Student Choice

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Sneak Peek: 10 Steps to Nurture Student Ownership of Assessment — Trevor MacKenzie

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As part of the release of Inquiry Mindset Assessment Edition , I would like to share with you some of the sketchnotes from the book. This one is titled 10 Steps to Nurture Student Ownership of Assessment. It frames chapter two and is the conceptual framework for creating more of a student agency ri

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Reflections from the Toddle Recess Duty Takeover with Levi Allison

For the last two years, I have been working on developing assessment capability in my classroom. As a specialist teacher, I work with over 300 students and have spent this year trying to answer the guiding question, 'How can I assess 300 students across multiple grades effectively while supporting agency?'. I had a chance to sit down with Cindy Blackburn on my podcast, Recess Duty, and reflect on my progress towards this goal.

In this blog, I will share with you three ingredients that have helped me grow assessment capability:

identifying clear success criteria

encouraging self-regulation

modeling vulnerability

If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Cindy, head over to my podcast, Recess Duty.

Identifying Clear Success Criteria

The first major change I made in my classroom was to become much clearer with success criteria. As guided inquiry educators, we should have a clear picture of what students should know, understand, and be able to do as a result of the learning. While we hold the primary responsibility of defining the scope of an inquiry and addressing our curriculum standards, there is immense value in sharing and unpacking what success looks like with students. I have made a few small but significant shifts that have had a profound impact on the learning in my classroom:

Lead with why:

The primary function of success criteria is to connect the class on why we are learning about music. In the early stages of our unit, we discuss the learning outcomes and share as a class why this learning is relevant in our lives.

Along with my students, I explored what it means to be a musician and why musicians are important in our lives. We dived into what it means to be artful and how we might use these skills in our everyday lives, as John Feiriband says, "to be artful, tuneful, and beat-ful". These three goals helped us ground the why behind studying music and we unpacked this together to develop personal whys. We then looked at how our standards, concepts, and engagements help support our whys.

From Linear to Circular:

Another major shift when designing success criteria was to change how we visualised it in the classroom- from a linear model to a circular model. With a linear approach, I often found students feeling ashamed of being "beginners." Therefore, a lot of our work this year has focused on building the confidence to recognise our own areas of growth. By shifting to a circular model, we have identified that all learners will eventually be beginners at something. I often share this learning cycle with my students and provide the central success criteria. As a class we discuss being a beginner or an expert in that skill looks like. Then, students place themselves on the circle and identify next steps.

Want to use this template with your students? Download it here.

Encouraging Self-regulation

Once we have clearly defined success criteria (the why) and brainstormed potential goals and milestones (how), the what is up to students! In the past, I felt the need to assign students work and manage their use of time. Now, I give increasing ownership to students of how they spend their time in pursuit of their goals. Students create their own learning plan for the day as they steadily work towards their goals, and my role shifts towards being both a facilitator and mentor. This shift has given me a significant amount of time to confer 1-on-1 with students and provide specific and timely feedback. This wouldn't have been possible in a specialist setting without the use of co-created stations. But I knew co-creating stations was just the beginning.

When I asked students what they enjoyed in music, most students said singing, a few said performing and some simply said they enjoyed listening to music as a way to relax, unwind, and study. After discussing what students enjoyed we started to draft activities that were available for students.

We then moved on to creating stations within music based on different songs. We had several songs based on difficulty and through discussion, we worked on identifying each student's 'just right' zone- a song that was neither too simple nor too hard but challenging enough to help them grow.

They took this challenge and flew! I am now constantly identifying new songs for them as they are eager to continue growing and challenging themselves musically. They may sing, perform, or simply analyse the musical patterns by listening, and they take ownership of how they share the various musical concepts.

Modelling Vulnerability

Admitting that we are growing can be scary! Asking for help from a peer requires an incredible amount of vulnerability and courage. Early on in the process of building assessment capability, I realised that I would need to develop a strong classroom culture to support this type of learning.

Modelling being a beginner:

To get students to become vulnerable, I had to show my own vulnerability and put my personal sticky note on the beginning side of our learning cycle and demonstrate that a beginner does not mean 'bad'. It just means you are starting your journey and that is ok. I knew I had to remove the stigma of being a beginner. I intentionally modelled using new technology platforms or trying new skills to show that everyone, including teachers, are learners.

Maslow before Bloom:

Although I see my students less frequently than their homeroom teachers, I wanted them to feel seen and cared for. One practice I have adopted is a daily digital check in. I use a google form and look for trends to identify how students are feeling and what times of year are full of excitement or challenges. I find ways to integrate SEL and emotional check-ins consistently so students know that not only do I care about their academic well-being but also about them as individuals.

A room full of teachers:

As a class, we practice the skill of asking for help and giving help. Whenever possible, I try to model this mindset. I try new tech tools or take risks in lessons to show that everyone in our classroom has something to learn and share. This gives my students the confidence to not only ask for help, but also gives them an opportunity to teach me and their peers.

It is important to create clear structures where we know what us acceptable as a learning community. I started my year with creating essential agreements around collaboration. We agreed as a community on what is helpful and not helpful. For example, "We agree to share our process and thinking but not the answer." I also explicitly share and model a few strategies to teach students how to teach. One way to do this is to get students practice explaining their thinking using drawings as a support tool.

My conclusions

When we empower our students to become assessment capable, we change our roles and relationships. Our classroom culture becomes one of trust, respect, and curiosity, and we create a space for connection and vulnerability. To me, this is what true success with assessment capability looks like.

I am not ashamed to say, that I am still a beginner! I have so much more to learn from and for my students. I plan to continue my journey by looking for even more ways to empower my student's ability to identify their areas of growth and to help support them with the next steps.

Thank you so much for joining me on my journey. I leave you with a few glimpses from my classroom so you can see my goal in action!

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Levi Allison is the PYP Music teacher at Chadwick International School in Korea. Having previously taught in Kuwait and China, he is originally from the United States calling Kansas his home. Levi holds a BSc in Music education and MSc's in both Administrative Leadership and Curriculum and Instruction. He is a visiting team member for WASC accreditation and a Google certified educator. He moderates the popular #PYPChat on Twitter, and hosts a podcast 'Recess Duty' that highlights educator stories from around the world.

Disclaimer - This resource has been produced independently of and not endorsed by the IB. Toddle's resources seek to encourage sharing of perspectives and innovative ideas for classroom teaching & learning. They are not intended to be replacements for official IB guides and publications. Views and opinions expressed by the authors of these resources are personal and should not be construed as official guidance by the IB. Please seek assistance from your school's IB coordinator and/or refer to official IB documents before implementing ideas and strategies shared within these resources in your classroom.

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3 Ingredients for Growing Assessment Capability

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Work on developing assessment capability in your classroom by using three key ingredients - identifying clear success criteria, encouraging self-regulation, and modeling vulnerability.

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A continuum from engagement to ownership

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A continuum from engagement to ownership

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Voice, Choice, Ownership Thinking Organizer (1)

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Where my favorite definition comes from- a lovely read

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Where my favorite definition comes from- a lovely read

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What is distributed leadership? What does the evidence say? And, can it work for your school? Professor Alma Harris, an expert in this area, discusses.

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11 Top Non-Monetary Incentives to Reward Your Employees

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Cash isn’t the only way to reward employees. Discover the most impactful non-monetary incentives your organization should offer!

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Toddle Gatheround - ATT goal setting printable

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Discover Your Personal Values | free online test

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What is the most important thing in your life? Find out with this personal values test. Discover your core values in 5 minutes and make more conscious decisions.

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Passion

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Impact, message, transform, opportunity

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Create change