source: The Edvocate

An elementary teacher explains how she helps students take control of their own learning by collaborating, creating comics, and voting on which lessons worked best.

Student choice is an effective avenue for increasing student ownership in learning and is highly beneficial in helping students make a deeper commitment to learning complex content. Because math comprises so many avenues of knowledge, choice can reduce the stress or anxiety surrounding a student’s mastery of those skills. Choice in math permits students an expression of control in their own learning, warranting such benefits as differentiation, self-pacing, and learning driven by interest rather than obligation. Choice can help pique interest and fuel motivation and engagement to learn new math concepts. 

It is not always clear how to give students choice in a math class, however. By its very nature, math is dichotomous: the answer is either right or wrong. This implies very little room for voice. However, I believe the new approach of solving through multiple strategies, rather than a singular “right” way, has helped pave the way for diverse voices and perspectives to emerge. For example, in my class, when a student is solving a problem on the board, the goal is not simply to get the right answer. Rather, the goal is for students to dig deep, push their brains, and produce as many valid methods as they can to arrive at the solution. And the best lightbulb moments to witness are ones in which students enlighten one another to new problem-solving strategies.

Ultimately, introducing choice to the math class can be as simple as letting students choose the order in which they complete the day’s worksheets, or as fun as having them design their own board game to reinforce news skills they have just learned. Here are a few ways I work to give students more choice in my math classes.

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