The Ken-Ton Curriculum & Instruction Department is spending part of the 2024-2025 school year focusing on high-impact instructional practices used in our classrooms across the district. Since January, we’ve been highlighting a different practice each month and spotlighting two of our teachers who excel at modeling this type of practice.
May’s focus is “Choice”. This practice is a powerful and effective way to increase student engagement, but it also poses a challenge for both teachers and students as it requires planning and preparation as well as a strong classroom culture. When students are offered a choice, the learning becomes more authentic and allows students to take ownership of their learning outcomes.
Two teachers who model this type of practice well are Holmes Elementary teacher Becca Rose and Kenmore East art teacher Megan Sweeney.
Sweeney implements choice often in her digital art class. For each project, she sets a creative challenge but allows students pick their topics and styles. Sometimes, she even lets them choose which digital art tools and techniques they want to use. While she sets guidelines for each project to ensure students stay on track, her goal is to get students excited and inspired by their individual choices.
“I've found that when students have a say in what they make, they're more engaged and prouder of their work,” Sweeney said. “They end up learning a lot more along the way.”
We visited Sweeney’s classroom on April 30th and saw choice used in a variety of ways. Not only could students pick the subject matter for their artwork, they also had three different project options. Some students turned music into digital paintings, others used animation to visualize sound waves, while the rest experimented with mixed media. On top of that, they also had access to a variety of tools, programs, and materials.
“It was great to see students exploring different approaches, sharing ideas, and really making the projects their own,” Sweeney said. “Choice in projects brings students closer together. When they discover shared interests, they connect. The classroom feels more like a creative community. Students grow not just as artists, but also as teammates and friends.”
While art provides a plethora of options for choice, Holmes Elementary teacher Becca Rose has found her own ways to use choice inside the classroom with her Gr. 4 students.
“As fourth graders, we are getting ready for middle school next year. Being able to have time now to learn about how our choices impact our learning, and how to make the best use of our time, sets us up for success outside the classroom and in the classroom,” Rose said. “The reflection allows for more ownership of "what do I already know" and "where do I need to practice more".
We visited Rose’s classroom on May 6th in the middle of a math lesson. While Rose was meeting with some students to go over reading materials, the rest of the class was participating in activity called “must do” and “can do”. Students chose if they wanted or needed to review fractions, multi-digit multiplication and division, place value, geometry, and word problems. Students were able to choose when they worked on each topic, as well as where.
“It promotes the building of their time-management skills, and forces them to reflect on their own learning needs,” Rose said about the “must do” and “can do” activity. “I also have choices for flexible seating, and we spent a lot of time at the beginning of the year exploring what our brains need to best learn. This might be standing up, a different type of chair, or working on the floor.”
By using choice in her everyday curriculum, Rose has seen students try new activities and work with others they usually don’t gravitate towards. Students have gotten excited about learning and even ask for more choices in several different subjects. The result has been higher quality work and more buy-in across the board.
“I like Choice because I’ve been to other classrooms and I didn’t like that they made me do things in their order,” Joshuel said. “Now we can do it whenever we want.”
“I like it because you can pick how much time you want to spend on something,” classmate Yuna added. Another classmate Charlie commented, “It makes it easier to do something hard first, than to do it last.”
“It helps them create something or learn in a way that they are really proud of,” Rose said. “They get excited to display their work, take it home to show their families, or even present it to the class.”
We’re so proud of our teachers for embracing and using “Choice” and the rest of our high-impact practices in their everyday curriculum. If you missed any of our spotlights, you can check out more high-impact practices below.
