Creating a student centered learning environment can be scary at first. After all you are putting a great amount of responsibility in the hands of your students.
For example, have you ever asked your students to give you a report card? Have you ever asked for their feedback on how your classroom feels and runs?
I had a chance to interview a fellow middle school teacher, Caitlin, and she did exactly that. At the end of the year, she stood before her students and asked for their honest feedback. That can be scary. Middle school students are brutally honest. But through those student surveys, Caitlin overwhelmingly saw the benefits of choice and a student centered learning environment.
Chatting with Caitlin made me wish I were a student in her math classroom. Below is a small piece of our conversation.
Do you remember the first time you used choice in the classroom?
No. I don’t remember when I first incorporated choice. I’m assuming it was something as simple as choosing odds or evens. Or where do you want to sit while doing independent work? If you are working and want to sit on your desk or under your desk, go for it. If you want to stand in the corner go for it. Giving students ownership of the room…it’s not always comfortable to sit in the chair. One of my sayings is “if your bottom is numb your brain is too so get up and move” On a basic level some sort of choice was starting with that. But in the past couple of years, I’ve been fine-tuning how to implement choice.
How often do you use choice?
With homework, most nights. I’m very big on choose odds, choose evens. We have a 30-minute time cap in 7th grade. Do what you can in 30 minutes. Show up tomorrow and show me what you can get done and we will build off that. With homework, nightly. With classwork once or twice a week I’ve been building up what I call ticket tasks. I’ll share more later. Another way I use choice is with assessments. I’ve started to build in things like if Part A is 4 problems, choose 3. If there are word problems they can skip 1 word problem. I get a lot of good feedback from students. Students learn it’s okay to skip one and try another one.
What is your favorite way to implement choice?
This is where I get excited. I do ticket tasks in my classroom. My structure is similar to most math teachers. A day of whole-class instruction and then we go into a day or two of practice.
Ticket tasks are for practice. They came out of my first year of 7th grade in my current district. I needed a behavior management plan so we came up with paper tickets or raffle tickets. Our classes are color-coded in my district. I take Astrobrite paper and cut them up into squares and each class has its own color. It started as positive rewards. You did x so you get a ticket for the weekly raffle.
That is still part of it, but then it morphed into earning tickets for task completion which in my mind is behavior management. My ticket tasks are how I structure review time or skill practice time. I come up with 3 – 6 choices of tasks from tpt, our curriculum, and other places. It’s a combination of printed and digital tasks.
I project on the board the options and how many tickets each task is worth. Depending on the complexity or the length. I have task cards so maybe they complete 4 or 5 for 1 ticket. A worksheet: complete evens or odds for 2 tickets. That gives students choice in what they want to complete. I have a weekly raffle system that has evolved. They can put their tickets in for the desired prize after they check in with me. They can work independently or with a partner. Prizes are things like pencils or jolly ranchers. I set a timer for 20 -25 minutes for them to work on ticket tasks. t gives me a chance to walk the room and check in with students.
Even though I use the same type of tasks each time but I talk to my students about it. I don’t want them to get bored.
They have input. My classroom is a student centered learning community.
What challenge(s) do you face with implementing choice?
The first thing I am thinking of isn’t really a challenge. It is just that it requires work. You can’t start this one day 2.
It is building up routines and procedures and those relationships in order for this to work.
There has to be front loading so they understand what working independently or with a partner should look like. Finding that balance of options can be challenging. I have more resources than I can count so figuring out a good number of options so that it isn’t overwhelming. But also giving them enough choices that every student resonates with at least one of them.
A self-imposed challenge is I know that I do more than I need to. I really struggle because I don’t know how to do it any other way. The prep that goes into it and the time and the financial piece in terms of finding awesome resources on tpt. And then setting it up. But that’s all on me. I know I don’t have to do this but I do it because I’ve seen the benefits in creating a student centered learning environment.
What benefits have you seen from giving your students choice?
At the end of this year, I surveyed my students and told them they were part of the classroom. I let them give me a report card where I asked for feedback on everything with a report card grade and comment. I was near tears blown away at their articulation and honesty. What came out of it was an overwhelming thank you for helping us create a classroom that is our own where our voice matters and our choice matters. I heard lots of “I look forward to math class because of the ticket tasks”. There was huge buy-in. I saw increased engagement and increased buy-in. Why is student centered learning effective?
My students owned their learning.
They would complete an assignment because they chose it. They were thankful for the opportunity to work in their own way and in their own time.
Student Centered Learning Environment
You can see why I wish I were a student in Caitlin’s classroom. Her student centered classroom has captured her students’ hearts and attention. How often do we hear students say they look forward to math class each day?
Creating a student centered environment can have a huge impact on every part of your classroom. You don’t have to jump all in on day one but you can start slowly creating this type of environment in your classroom with things like the warm up choice board you can download for free. The template makes it quick and easy for you to give your students choice and help them take ownership of their learning every day.
Learn More…
Listen to our entire conversation here.
Create your own choice boards with this set of templates
