Choice Boards
Grades K-12
Big Idea
The purpose of choice boards which are structured like a tic-tac-toe board, are for students to choose how they learned the content. Choice boards offer a series of activities that focus on students' specific learning needs, interests, and abilities. Choice boards are easily adapted across disciplines and grade levels, and provides opportunities to showcase the skills students have learned, a way to practice new content skills, and extend student learning.
Directions
- Identify the instructional focus and learning outcomes of a unit of study. What do you want students to know and be able to do by the end of the unit?
- Determine student readiness, interests, learning styles, and needs using assessment data, student surveys, and learner profiles.
- Design nine different tasks that meet your students' various interests, needs, and learning styles. Arrange each task so it has its own grid on the Tic-Tac-Toe board.
- Select one required task for all students. This task should be placed at the center of the board.
- Ask your students to complete three tasks, one of which must be the one in the middle. Students should complete their tasks in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal Tic-Tac-Toe row.
When to use
Choice boards can be used...
- to give students an opportunity to showcase the skills they have mastered, practice new content and skills, and extend their learning.
- to allow students to choose how they want to showcase their learning throughout a lesson or unit
- as a way for students to choose a question that they would feel most comfortable in answering
Video
Watch the video on how to use choice boards and to see various ways to use them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR9VhzFCFaY
Strategy Variations
- Design different choice boards based on student learning styles (visual, kinesthetic, and auditory) each type of learner gets their own choice board
- Create a choice board that includes multiple tasks that different learners can access such as English Language Learners, students with special needs, and gifted and talented learners
- Teachers can add additional spaces to choice boards to increase the number of opportunities students have to demonstrate their learning and practice skills
- Teachers can color code the different choices so different levels of students can access to practice their learning and skills
- Work with students to determine specific tasks based on their abilities and learning needs