Why the one thing all teachers should do is provide choice to their students.
There is a great comedic trope about teaching. The punchline is that what makes teaching a difficult profession is that we have to teach students subjects against their will. While this is funny because there is truth there, the key to empowering your students in their own learning and also saving your sanity as an educator is leveraging the power of choice in the classroom.
You don’t have to look far in the world to see the power that providing choice has for making people invested in the success of something. Just look at the docuseries Quarterback on netflix. These are grown adults who get paid millions of dollars to play a game. And yet when they dive into what makes Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs a dynasty in a sport that is made to create new champions every year is that Andy Reid gives his players a say in the process. The players get to make up and name their own plays and then Andy Reid adds his own and puts together a game plan based on what the players want and like to do. And when he is asked why he does this he says what all educators should know all too well, “When they are involved in the process they are more invested in the outcome of success”.
The same is true for our students in the classroom. When they get to be involved and have the power over their own decisions when it comes to learning they are more invested in the success of their growth.
I always compare it to strength training. If students are always watching you lift weights, how are they going to get stronger? We need to make sure that we are not only having students be the one’s lifting the weights, but that we also take into account different needs.
When we add choice into the classroom process we are automatically differentiating for our students without having to change every assignment or task multiple times to accommodate or modify as necessary for the wide variety of IEP’s, 504’s and more.
All students learn differently, and have different strengths and weaknesses, but as teachers we cannot possibly create 10+ versions of the same assignment so that all students can get what they need out of it. That’s not practical or viable long term. But when we add in choice to our assignments and tasks we are already accommodating the needs of all our students without receding the same assignment multiple ways and times.
So how do we actually do that?
Give students a choice in either the product or process of their learning.
Think of it as letting students choose either how they learn, what they learn, or how they show what they have learned
