The Four Must-Haves of Effective Choice Boards
Providing autonomy and choice is paramount to creating engagement in the classroom. Choice boards are one of the best tools for creating an engaging and student-centered classroom. Why Provide Choice? Research shows that providing students with choice increases engagement, leads to more profound and richer learning experiences, increases on-task behavior, has positive impacts on SEL, increases collaboration, and can even decrease negative stress-responses in the brain (Anderson, 2016; Denton, 2005; Willis, 2006). What are Choice Boards? A choice board is a graphic organizer containing choices for how or what students learn (flexibility in the product or process) and can be completed individually or in groups. There are four essential "must-haves" of effective choice boards: Goal-Oriented Structured Choice Engagement Flexibility 1. Goal-Oriented Effective choice boards are centered around a learning goal based on one or both of the following: Content - What do you want