Student Choice with Kristy from 2 Peas and a Dog

When students are given choices, their engagement and output increase, leading to a sense of ownership in their learning. Join me this week as I interview Kristy from 2 Peas and a Dog about the importance and benefits of student choice. 

In this episode, Kristy and I discuss the power of student choice in the classroom and its impact on engagement and learning. We explore how offering choices, such as choice reading or topic selection for essays, leads to increased student motivation and higher completion rates. Kristy highlights the idea of scaffolding assignments by difficulty level on choice boards, allowing all students to participate and succeed at their level and in their style of learning. 

Additionally, Kristy provides practical tips for incorporating choice, including starting small and offering alternative formats for assignments.  She explains how to include choice without needing to create multiple different assignments for every task.  

In this episode on providing more opportunities for student choice, Kristy shares with us: 

• Student choice increases engagement and output, leading to a sense of ownership in learning.
• Giving students choice helps students feel like they have some say in what takes place in the classroom
• Not every assignment needs to include multiple assignment options, you can provide simple options such as “Do you want to work independently or with a partner?”
• Choice allows for differentiation by offering tasks of varying difficulty levels to meet students’ individual needs.

Get to Know Kristy from 2 Peas and a Dog:

Kristy is a middle school teacher in Canada. When she is not teaching, you can find her reading a good book, thrift store shopping or blogging at www.2peasandadog.com.

Connect with Kristy

• 2 Peas and a Dog
• Rubik’s Cube Lesson
• Independent Reading Journal

Be sure to join the Secondary ELA Facebook group where we will be brainstorming more ideas on how you can add student choices to your class!

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