Choice Boards have been one of the more talked about tools as of late. The idea is to provide your audience with choices within the realm of a particular subject, and give participants an opportunity to explore, work on, and complete things that interest them.
Some of the Choice Boards we have helped create have been
for Math (concepts, formulas, terms), Science (terms, parts of a cell, the
human body), ELA (reading and writing), Foreign Languages (translations,
conjugations), Social Studies (maps, terms, particular battles, people in
history), Art (styles, periods, artists), Music (composers, styles,
instrumental), and Physical Education (game rules and playing areas, terms,
lifetime activities, health).
And don’t just limit your creation to students, find ways to
use Choice Boards for Teachers. At the
beginning of our school year, we always offer Professional Development, as do
most all school districts that I have ever heard of in all my many years. This particular year was different in many
ways, mainly due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.
We found that preparing our teachers after a delayed opening, and then
having to start the year completely virtual, that there were things we wanted
to make sure teachers were prepared to do; like using our Google Classroom as
the Learning Management System, and using the different Virtual Meeting tools
that were available. “How do we…?”
became a catch phrase around here.
We started by talking with and surveying teachers as to what
things they thought they’d like to see tutorials for, and pretty quick. Next,
we took advantage of the tools provided by YouTube to create a channel where we
could create and house “How-To” videos for our teachers. Step three, we gathered the 10 most requested
Google Tools, and the 10 most requested general tools that would help teachers be
better prepared to launch the school year virtually. Once we created the
videos, we added the videos, with a short description to a Google Choice Board,
and to a General Choice Board.
Because it was so critical to gather and talk through the
plans, schedules and some other assessment tools that were newly acquired,
there wasn’t time for the Tech Coaches to conduct all of the sessions that were
going to play such a pivotal role in the start of school. So we gave it to our
teachers in the form of the Choice Boards.
We gave teachers a time frame in which to complete the
assignments. They had to watch at least
two of the Choice Board Activities for each Board, and then had to record in a
Google Form, which ones they watched and how they were planning to apply them
in their instruction. They could watch as many as they wanted, but were only
responsible for recording two per Board.
This not only helped us to help them, but gave us a good foothold
on their status as far as tech proficiency.
Here are links for our two Choice Boards if you care to see
them:
Also, feel free to watch any of the (at this point), 127 “How-To” videos on our YouTube Channel.
Keith Brown,
Instructional Technology Coach, Georgetown County School District, Georgetown,
SC, USA.
