Voice and Choice Are Not Just Buzzword

I believe that all learning is personal, and it still is. An essential part of ensuring that all learners' needs are being met is that they understand how they learn best and can communicate that to their teacher. Of course, this feedback means nothing if the instruction isn’t adjusted, but that’s another blog post in itself. 

While going through some old photos on my MacBook, I came across this one 9 years ago when I began incorporating more voice and choice in my classroom. It illustrated a simple form of feedback I gained from students at the end of a unit. I’d have the headers on the board and leave the room while students wrote their opinions. 

It’s hard to read, so I’ll put the responses in the table below. I did not correct any grammatical errors.

How Have I Been Given Voice and Choice?

• We have a lot of apps to choose from, and we have the option to make presentations based on voice recording, visual demonstrations, or lab write-ups

• Projects allow us to be creative

• Mr. Mo allows us to have our choice in making our projects in our own creative way

• I personally feel tests don’t give an accurate representation of a student's abilities, especially if people get test anxiety

• Students get a choice in the way they want to be tested, not only traditional MC tests, but projects, presentations, etc.

• We actually learn the material instead of memorizing!

• It allows me to choose how I want to approach a project throughout. Other classes teachers force you to make certain types of presentations. But in this class I’m allowed to decide that I don’t want to make a video, I don’t have too and I would get the same grade.

• Students can offer their own ideas to the teacher without worrying about receiving a negative response

• You let us give ideas to help us learn in our own way such as Kahoot quizzes and projects

• It’s really personalized learning and there are different options that work for everyone

Why Is It Beneficial?

• Students can show their understanding in a way that uses their learning style! Plus presenting information is great practice for the future!

• We often have to think outside the box which results in beneficial learning and problem-solving

• It helps us develop new ideas and collaborate with one another.

• We can all learn in our own style and in a way that will help us the most

• Students, regardless of their test-type preference, can excel in physics.

• We can take responsibility for our own education which prepares more for college

• We can learn at our own pace and not worry about stressful tests

• The video presentations are more helpful than traditional rests because the student becomes the teacher and is required to explain the concepts learned in class

• Having a flexible learning path makes a class less stressful and seems to create a more free, open, idea-sharing atmosphere in the classroom

• Because we can learn the way we want

Okay, so there seems to be an overwhelming sentiment against “traditional tests” in this feedback. Let me just take a quick aside that it could be a completely different blog post. 

I just want to take a moment to provide a few examples of assessment evidence from some of the classes in our school district:

• Analyze data to support the claim that Newton’s second law of motion describes the mathematical relationship among the net force on a macroscopic object, its mass, and its acceleration.

• I can present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the reasoning and organization. 

• Wisconsin students will develop claims using evidence to support reasoning.

These standards are written as if the student will be able to (verb) of (direct object) and may include some extra guidelines.

  

A big thing to note about these and all the standards I have looked at is that they do not include the words “multiple-choice test.” 

I have nothing against teaching learners how to take a multiple-choice test. But isn’t that its own standard and set of skills? The ability to effectively take a multiple-choice test is its own separate standard!

Ok, enough of that rant.

The point is that learners need to be able to express that they have mastered the standard. If the standard doesn’t specifically state how they will express mastery, why exclude methods that work best for the learner?

Here are some of the methods I have used in the past in a unit dealing with light

Ultimately, the students choose the assessment method and use their voice to demonstrate mastery of a standard.  Allowing students to express their voices helps the teacher construct alternative choices for how they would prefer to best demonstrate their mastery of the content/standard, which only helps increase the choice options.