If you don’t know the pleasure of using choice boards, you are missing out! Choice boards are a great way to give your students autonomy over their own learning and the power to pick and choose their own tasks. They also create an easy setup for different types of tasks in one comprehensive resource. Let me tell you why I think choice boards are awesome, and how you can make them easily yourself.
Choice boards give options
Essentially, a choice board is a menu of options to choose from. When I make mine, I always aim for 9 options for my students to choose from. The options usually include two or three reading tasks in which I refer them to online texts; two or three listening tasks in which I refer to videos; two writing tasks; one vocabulary task for which I usually use Kahoot; and one task for which they must analyze the info from an infographic. My students must always choose 4 or 5 of the tasks out of 9, but you can have them choose fewer or more. The point is for them to choose whatever they like to do best.
They help you bundle smaller tasks into one
If there’s lots of small texts or short videos you want your students to read or watch about a topic, but individually they are too small to fill a lesson, a choice board will give you a chance to put all of those sources in front of your students in a lesson-filling way. Your students will soak up lots of info at a time this way. I’m always finding new texts and videos that I want to include but don’t have time for, and it’s easy to combine them all into a choice board. Or when I feel like I haven’t done enough practice of a certain skill, I will make sure to pack my choice board with more options in that area.
Choice boards cater to different levels of proficiency
Students may pick a task according to their level of proficiency in the language. You can have students pick a task they normally have trouble with. For example, if they struggle with reading comprehension, get them to practice this skill. Or you can have them pick a task that aligns with their proficiency. For instance, a student may want to pick an easy task instead of a hard one if they are less proficient, or the other way around with a challenging task. I always make clear to students whether a task is easier or more advanced, so that they know the deal when they choose it. It works really well to challenge those students that can handle it, and help less proficient students experience success during an easier task.
They are time fillers for when you’re tired
Let’s face it, sometimes we just don’t have the inspiration or even time to come up with a wonderful lesson. I’m writing this at the end of the school year, and God knows I’m wasn’t feeling it anymore when I last did prep. Choice boards are great for times like these, because you can just put them in front of students, and it’ll keep them busy for an entire lesson! You have to make them in advance, of course, and it will take a little creativity, but that’s not hard. I’ll tell you the steps below!
How to make choice boards fast and easily!
I love to use QR codes for my choice boards. That way, I can print a sheet for each student, and students can then independently scan the codes to get to the sources to complete the tasks. Below you’ll find the steps I take.
- Create a choice board sheet in your worksheet-making program of choice (Word?).
- Find your source: a text, a video, or a vocabulary quiz online.
- Copy the link.
- Go to goqr.me and input the link into the URL option.
- Download the PNG of the QR code.
- Insert it into the sheet you’ll provide to your students.
- Add a task to the sheet so students will know what to do.
- Think of 8 more tasks, either with sources and QR codes or without, to fill the sheet.
And voila: your choice board is ready to go! Definitely try it some time, because it’s so much fun!
If you want to try some of mine, I’ve got four of them up in my store! Check them out here.
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