What choices have you made for yourself today? You probably chose what to wear, what to have for breakfast, and even to read this article. Now imagine a world where you have no choices. Someone else tells you what to do and when to do it. It probably doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?
For children, life may feel like this a lot of the time. While they may have some limited choices, most of their decisions are made for them by adults, both at home and school. When given the chance, however, children are capable of making good decisions about their own learning, and increased choice can lead to increased engagement, learning, and happiness. Choice can also help ensure children are doing the mental work of learning rather than simply echoing what they are told. When students are given choice in their learning, everybody wins!
Choice matters
The idea of letting students choose what they want to do might seem counterintuitive. Why do we even have teachers, after all? Don’t teachers have the knowledge that children need to grow into successful adults?
Ceding control to students might feel a bit like opening the door to chaos. The benefits of increasing opportunities for student choice and agency outweigh the drawbacks, though. In fact, research has shown that student choice has positive effects on almost every aspect of student learning. A study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, for example, found that giving students a choice of homework improved their motivation to do it, which led to increased completion and feelings of competence. There is also some evidence that student choice can diminish behavioral issues among students with ADHD. Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College, has described the condition as often being “a school adjustment problem” and has found that students diagnosed with ADHD are able to stay focused on tasks that interest them or when given the opportunity for self-direction.
However, arguments for student choice go beyond the socio-emotional benefits. Multiple studies have found positive effects of choice on student achievement as well. For example, reading self-selected books has been found to increase students’ reading comprehension, vocabulary, and background knowledge. In another study, teachers who implemented a program of self-selected, self-paced reading found not only increased reading volume but also an increase in the number of students passing the state reading test. There is similar evidence about the positive effect of student choice on math achievement. Finally, a study of student choice in homework found that, in addition to helping students be more motivated to complete their homework, choice leads to better performance on unit tests.
Freedom, not chaos
To be clear: student choice does not mean a free-for-all. Maria Montessori, one of the first advocates for student agency, described “freedom within limits.” This means teachers can thoughtfully set up an environment in which students can make appropriate choices. Educational researcher Robert Marzano identified three main areas where students can have meaningful choices in their schoolwork: choice in task, choice in assessment, and choice in learning goals. Students can be given meaningful choices in non-academic areas of classroom life as well. Students can (and should) be involved in creating classroom norms, for example.
It is important to note that what makes choice work is giving students true choice. When I first started involving my own students in setting classroom norms, I had a very clear picture in my mind of what those norms should be, and my process involved guiding students to my norms. It was only when I understood that my students had valid ideas about how the classroom should function that they really began to have agency in the process. I still gave them guidance, of course. But once I accepted that my elementary school students could come up with class rules that were legitimate even if they didn’t match my original ideas, the process of creating those rules became fully authentic. If students suggested something inappropriate or missed something important, as the teacher, I still had final say. Not chaos; freedom within limits.
How to offer more choice in your classroom
There are many ways to offer students at any grade level meaningful choices throughout the day. Some are universal, while others work best for a specific grade level. The amount of planning and resources required for student choice opportunities varies, but there is something for everyone.
Early elementary
We may think of young children as needing the most direction, but it is important to find opportunities for choice for early elementary students. Even more than older kids, primary-grade children’s lives are directed and controlled by adults from morning to night. Any opportunity for independence and self-direction is a welcome break from being told what to do and when and how.
Important considerations:
- Giving young children opportunities for input into their own learning can help them learn self-control and self-regulation, which will continue to benefit them throughout their time in school.
- Unstructured play is an important form of choice for students at this age (and beyond). This can happen in the classroom, such as a 10–15 minute unstructured quiet time after lunch, as well as on the playground.
- While teacher planning and preparation are important for offering choice in any grade, they are most important with the youngest students, who are the least independent. It’s ok to introduce choice gradually, carefully scaffold choice time, and scale back if students are having difficulty making good choices.
Opportunities for choice:
- Voting can offer young students opportunities for choice. At first, you can choose low-impact decisions, such as which of two books to listen to as a read-aloud or what song to sing at morning meeting. As students become comfortable with how voting works, you can offer votes on larger issues, such as the topic for an upcoming project.
- While teachers need some control over what students read, there should still be some opportunities for student-selected reading, including books that might seem too easy or too difficult. As students gain reading fluency, they can independently choose more of their books.
- Learning centers or stations are a classic option for student choice at an early age. Resist the temptation to make all decisions about how students move between centers and what activities they complete when they get there. Students can also give input into what centers they find most enjoyable.
Upper elementary and middle school
Upper elementary and middle school students are growing in independence but are generally still eager to please. They are developmentally ready to learn decision-making and self-evaluation, which makes choice a natural fit for the age. While children in these years are still usually willing to complete tasks because the teacher says so, tapping into their interests and passions can make their learning even more powerful.
Important considerations:
- These years are crucial for supporting student engagement. It is well documented that time spent reading decreases as children get older, and motivation is key to adolescent success in school. Providing choice is a fundamental way to increase engagement and motivation.
- If students don’t have the opportunity to learn to choose books they enjoy, they are likely to lose interest in reading through middle school and into high school. Even requiring students to complete reading logs can decrease student motivation to read.
- Student choice does not have to be all or nothing. When planning book clubs, for example, teachers can let students rank their choices but retain responsibility for making the final decisions themselves. Students might not get their first choice, but they should also not get their last.
Opportunities for choice:
- In addition to helping create class norms, upper elementary and middle school students can participate in creating and assigning classroom jobs. This can help students learn what needs to be done to maintain a comfortable learning environment and contribute to them staying invested in keeping the class running smoothly.
- When taking a break from whole-class instruction, rather than assigning students partners, allow them to choose their own or decide whether to work independently or in groups. To prevent students from defaulting to a single best friend, use clock partners or season partners. Have your students self-select pairings for each hour or season early in the year. Then, whenever it’s time for partner work, students can be directed to work with their preselected partner.
- Flexible seating options can go a long way, even if your school doesn’t allow for much flexibility in instruction. Retain some traditional desks and chairs, but consider including beanbags or large cushions on the floor, wobble stools, and desks raised to a standing height.
- Differentiated instruction offers multiple opportunities for meaningful choice. There are many resources available for creating work menus or choice boards, for example. RAFT assignments also give students varying degrees of choice in how they demonstrate their learning. These and other differentiation strategies allow students to learn the same content in ways that play to their strengths and interests.
- Options for reading and literary analysis foster engagement. If students are required to read the same novel or excerpt, allow them to choose a paragraph or section of the text to respond to. Another option is to let them come up with their own questions to answer or choose from a teacher-created list.
- In math, allow student to choose which of a set of problems to solve, which materials or strategies to use, and whether to work independently or with a partner or group. Students don’t need all of these choices on every assignment, but one or more can be included regularly.
High school
High school is a crucial time for student choice. Students at this age are no longer focused primarily on seeking teacher approval and are past the point of compliance for its own sake. Students won’t do—or will give minimal effort to—work that seems boring or irrelevant. While there are other ways to get around these challenges, increasing student choice can be a simple, efficient way to get buy-in from high school students.
Important considerations:
- High school students are more independent than younger students and can do a lot more on their own or in student-led groups. When students are not all working on the same text or the same topic, the teacher’s role should shift from helping with content to helping with the process, which is better preparation for life after graduation.
- Some keys to choice in high school are providing options that are relevant to students—and helping them see the relevance—and allowing students to choose topics or products that are interesting to them.
- Choices also have to be authentic; high school students will readily see through artificially engineered options that aren’t meaningful choices.
- Larger schools often have more capacity to offer students choice through options such as AP or IB courses and electives, so smaller schools may need to look for creative scheduling solutions.
- Some schools create barriers to enrollment in advanced courses. While this makes sense in the case of prerequisites, consider allowing students who express interest in choosing an advanced course the opportunity to give it a try.
- One way that a lack of resources can be addressed is through collaboration. Teachers can work together to plan units they can teach at different times during the semester, rotating books and other resources among classes.
Opportunities for choice:
- In group work, it’s ok to have defined roles, but allow students to decide who within the group is best suited to each role. This increases student ownership of the assignment and decreases the likelihood that one person will do all the work.
- Prioritize learning objectives over learning process. Determine what is actually important for students to learn and do, but then be flexible about how. For example, instead of assigning a single novel, allow students to choose from a set of novels around a particular theme. Students can still write the same paper, such as examining theme or characterization, but they will write it about a novel that they were interested in reading. Similarly, in social studies classes, students can choose one element of a larger topic to study in depth.
- In writing assignments, the topic is often not as important as the type of writing. Students can choose their own topic for a research paper, argumentative essay, or personal narrative. Students can be assessed on the same content standards regardless of topic.
- Connect learning to potential career strands. You won’t want to pigeonhole students, of course, but give them a chance to explore their interests and try out different paths.
In closing
None of the options listed here are silver bullets that will magically guarantee student engagement or student learning. There are many factors that affect which strategies will work in any given situation. The key is not implementing a choice board or having students vote on a read-aloud but, rather, considering what meaningful opportunities for student choice work in your context.
While ceding decision-making power to children might sound like a recipe for disaster, remember that you as the teacher can set students up for success in how you structure opportunities for choice. The goal isn’t to fully relinquish control but to share it in ways that deepen investment and ownership in learning.
