Flexible Assignments

Recently I helped one of my Science teachers develop an assignment for her students, but this one was unique because she gave them choices as to how they wanted to complete the assignment. The options she gave included a brochure, a video, or a slideshow presentation. The students had to accomplish the same task, but the route they took to demonstrate their learning was up to them, and that flexibility allowed them some creativity as well.

I'll admit that it took a little more work to come up with specific requirements for each type of project. For example, presentations had to have multimedia, videos had to be a certain length, etc., but setting up those parameters for the students ahead of time helped them to know what was expected of them in the assignment.

A lot of times in the field of education you'll hear about Differentiated Instruction and Differentiated Learning. And, although there are more ways that you can differentiate learning, this choice of assessment options is an example of that. It was a great assignment all the way around - it gave students choice, a change to express their creativity, and an opportunity to collaborate.

So for this post I thought I would give some ideas that are available for differentiated assignments. This is not a complete list by any means, but it might be a good starting point.