What are choice boards and why do we use them?

The first time that I saw a choice board during my education studies, it lit a spark in me! It looked like a tic-tac-toe board and provided a menu of learning options. I have since used choice boards for lesson plans. It is a reminder that there is no one size that fits all with education and that there are many ways for people to gain knowledge and skills and to express their knowledge and skills. Choice boards can be used in corporate training (for business and professional development needs) and education (K-12 and higher education) environments. Choice boards are powerful tools that can accomplish several important things:

Empower Learners to Design Their Own Learning Experience:

Choice is empowering as the responsibility shifts to the learner to determine how they learn and how the learning is assessed. When we create an environment with choice, the learner feels more in control of his or her learning journey.

Promote Active Learning:

Active learning is student-centered. The student is placed in an active role and is not a passive recipient of information. Many learning environments follow an instructor-led or trainer-led formula. The student knows he or she will be provided with information and then get tested on it. It is important for educators and/or trainers to think beyond this formula. How will learners use their knowledge moving forward in their lives? We must challenge them to use higher-order thinking skills. This involves evaluating, synthesizing, and analyzing information. This goes beyond recall and involves the application of knowledge.

Engage in Multimodal Learning:

Multimodal learning can involve the five senses: see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. It allows a learner to experience more than one way of one learning. For example, written text is heavily relied on in education and training environments. It is just one approach though. I recently worked with a high school student who expressed that he did not understand what a sundial was after reading about it. It wasn’t until we looked at images of a sundial together that he understood what it was. The written text was not enough for him.

It is important to remember that people have different learning styles or preferred ways to learn. Some people prefer learning through visuals, others through kinesthetic means. Educational psychologists discuss a variety of learning styles. For the purposes of this blog, I will focus on the following four: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Read/Write.

The visual learner would appreciate photos and drawings of concepts. The auditory learner would enjoy an audiobook or a podcast. The kinesthetic learner would value hands-on activities such as a science lab, using manipulatives, or building a model. The Read/Write learner would be excited to read a book and then take notes on the reading. These are just some examples of how to incorporate different learning styles to enhance student learning. There are many more out there. A learner would benefit from using more than one modality. Personally, all these modalities would help me to grasp concepts that I am learning for the first time.

Students I have worked with have expressed that they understand concepts better through more than one modality. Multimodal learning improves comprehension and retention of information.

Example Choice Board :

The below choice board serves as one example. There are many ways to customize a choice board based on the goals of a course or lesson. The below choice board is on the topic of “Climate Change” with a focus on understanding the content using a multimodal approach.

LEARN (Select 1 activity from below)

APPLY YOUR LEARNING (Select 1 activity from below)

REFLECT (Select 1 activity from below)

WATCH A VIDEO

Visual*

(Click here for

Directions)

CREATE A DIAGRAM

Visual*

(Click here for

Directions)

Reflection Activity 1:

Pen your thoughts on your learning

Write*

(Click here for Directions)

EXPLORE A

SIMULATION

Kinesthetic*

(Click here for Directions)

PREPARE A BROCHURE

Write*

(Click here for Directions)

Reflection Activity 2:

Record your thoughts on your learning

Auditory*

(Click here for Directions)

READ AN

ESSAY

Read*

(Click here for

Dir...

eLearning

Message History

Delivery option(s)