Ignite Student Engagement with Learning Menus & Choice Boards

Learning Menus and Choice Boards have been getting a lot of attention in the teaching community recently.  They provide built-in student choice, a key component for activating Student Engagement.

Learning Menus and Choice Boards have been around for a long time in paper form, but have seen resurging interest with the incorporation of digital tools.  They are so flexible, they can be structured in many ways.  Teachers use them to provide choice for the following reasons:

• Accessing your content - students have a choice of activities to access course content
• Show What you know - students have a choice of multiple activities to demonstrate their understanding
• Capstone Project - students have a choice of project for the end-of-unit or 'capstone' project.

Choice Boards:

Choice Boards give students multiple options for a single assignment or a small number of related assignments.  If you are a seasoned teacher, you probably have lots of already created activities to add to the Choice Board.  One of my favorite Choice Boards is the Tic-Tac-Toe board.  All students participate in the middle block activity and then choose 2 others to make a Tic-Tac-Toe:

Click here for a copy of Choice Menu courtesy of Kasey Bell

You can see the Choice Board above ensures each student will do the middle activity along with a blue and yellow activity.  The strategic placement of activities ensures students have adequate rigor and similar time requirements.

The Choice menu below provides student options for an end-of-unit project in an Introduction to Coding class:

Notice this teacher also included a 'Create your Own' activity cell to give students the option to propose a project that interests them.

Learning Menus:

Similar to Choice Boards, Learning Menus generally are a little more comprehensive. Students usually select an option from each part of the menu (many are set up like this one with Beverage, Appetizer, Entree, and Dessert).  

Click here for Google Slide Show explanation from Tom Spall, click here for Rubric.

The Learning menu above is used for every project that students are assigned.  Students can choose from any one of these options to 'Show what they know'.   This is a variation on the model where students choose an activity from each category.

The Teaching Channel video below interviews teacher Mary Vagenas in her classroom using Learning Menus for Social Studies.

Click here to play this video on using Learning Menus with a Social Studies Textbook.
Click here for the Learning Menu Support Document.

More Learning menu templates are available in the Meaningful Choice Menus for Classrooms by Laurie Westphal.

Are Learning Menus & Choice Boards also HyperQuests?

No, but they are often part of a HyperQuest, particularly if the HyperQuest is designed for an entire unit!

How do I manage and assess different projects?

Manage:

If you are using Google Classroom (and most people are), you can ask students to use the CREATE feature located in the assignment.  They can create a new Google Doc, Slide, Sheet, or Drawing to work on and turn in.  

Google Classroom will name the file as it normally would - Assignment name Student name.  All the ownership privileges follow the normal process you are used to, so you have visibility into the history of the project.  Students click TURN IN when they are done, just as they normally would.

If the student is creating a project that isn't a native Google app, they can use the ADD feature to turn in the assignment.  They can turn in a link or file of any kind.  (Note: I don't like students using the ADD feature for Google Drive files.  This means you will not have full access to the history of the file.)

Assess:

If you search, you will find a rubric for almost any type of project that students might turn in.  But, we do have some in-house experts!  Rivers & Revolution, Ethan Hoblitzelle, Eric Rivera, and Alex Spence offer lots of options for students to 'Show what they know' and have experience in assessing different types of submissions to satisfy the same assignment!  Many teachers have developed rubrics for assessing video and podcast submissions including Meredith Fischer, Kim Magee, and most of the World Language teachers!

Learn More:

Do you have a unit or project that isn't working for you?  Consider using HyperQuests, Learning Menus, or Choice Boards to change it up!  You can learn more by attending hands-on-workshops offered during the summer:

Tuesday, August 21st

HyperQuests & Choice Boards: Tools to Support  Independent  Inquiry Learning & Differentiation  (4 SPED PDPs)

Learn how Choice boards and Hyperquests (known to most of the world as Hyperdocs) support inquiry learning offering students 'voice and choice' while allowing easy differentiation for your students!
Teachers will be given ample time in class to begin work on a HyperQuest or Choice Board with support.
Requirements: 1 hour of pre-work prior to class, 2 hours of class time, and 1 hour of post work with a demonstrated application with students (upload digital evidence).

Wednesday, August 22nd - Summer EdCamp Session Schedule

HyperQuests & Choice Boards: Tools to support  Independent  Inquiry Learning & Differentiation- (1 SPED PDP)

Part of the Summer EdCamp sessions, this shorter version of the longer course offers great insight into why and how you might consider using HyperQuests and Choice Boards in your classroom!

Sign up for both of these offerings in MLP! (For the Summer EdCamp Session, you will sign up in MLP for the entire session. You may attend all or some of the sessions. You will be awarded PDP's based on sign-in sheet attendance at each session.)