Rounding Up Season 3 | Episode 3 – Choice as a Foundation for Student Engagement Guest: Drs. Zandra de Araujo and Amber Candela Mike Wallus: As an educator, I know that offering my students choice has a big impact on their engagement, their identity, and their sense of autonomy. That said, I've not always been sure how to design choice into the activities in my classroom, especially when I'm using curriculum. Today we're talking with Drs. Zandra de Araujo and Amber Candela about some of the ways educators can design choice into their students' learning experiences. Welcome back to the podcast, Zandra and Amber. It is really exciting to have you all with us today. Zandra de Araujo: Glad to be back. Amber Candela: Very excited to be here. Mike: So, I've heard you both talk at length about the importance of choice in students' learning experiences, and I wonder if we can start there. Before we talk about the ways you think teachers can design choice in a learning experience, can we just talk about the “why”? How would you describe the impact that choice has on students' learning experiences? Zandra: So, if you think about your own life, how fun would it be to never have a choice in what you get to do during a day? So, you don't get to choose what chores to do, where to go, what order to do things, who to work with, who to talk to. Schools are a very low-choice environment, and those tend to be punitive when you have a low-choice environment. And so, we don't want schools to be that way. We want them to be very free and open and empowering places. Amber: And a lot of times, especially in mathematics, students don't always enjoy being in that space. So, you can get more enjoyment, engagement, and if you have choice with how to engage with the content, you'll have more opportunity to be more curious and joyful and have hopefully better experiences in math. Zandra: And if you think about being able to choose things in your day makes you better able to make choices. And so, I think we want students to be smart consumers and users and creators of mathematics. And if you're never given choice or opportunity to kind of own it, I think that you're at a deficit. Amber: Also, if we want problem-solving people engaged in mathematics, it needs to be something that you view as something you were able to do. And so often we teach math like it's this pre-packaged thing, and it's just your role to memorize this thing that I give you. You don't feel like it's yours to play with. Choice offers more of those opportunities for kids. Zandra: Yeah, it feels like you're a consumer of something that's already made rather than somebody who's empowered to create and use and drive the mathematics that you're using, which would make it a lot more fun. Mike: Yeah. You all are hitting on something that really clicked for me as I was listening to you talk. This idea that school, as it's designed oftentimes, is low choice. But math, in particular, where historically it has really been, “Let me show you what to do. Let me have you practice the way I showed you how to do it,” rinse and repeat. It's particularly important in math, it feels like, to break out and build a sense of choice for kids. Zandra: Absolutely. Mike: Well, one of the things that I appreciate about the work that both of you do is the way that you advocate for practices that are both really, really impactful and also eminently practical. And I'm wondering if we can dive right in and have you all share some of the ways that you think about designing choice into learning experiences. Amber: I feel like I want “eminently practical” on a sticker for my laptop. Because I find that is a very satisfying and positive way to describe the work that I do because I do want it to be practical and doable within the constraints of schooling as it currently is, not as we wish it to be. Which, we do want it to be better and more empowering for students and teachers. But also, there are a lot of constraints that we have to work within. So, I appreciate that. Zandra: I think that choice is meant to be a way of empowering students, but the goal for the instruction should come first. So, I'm going to talk about what I would want from my students in my classroom and then how we can build choice in. Because choice is kind of like the secondary component. So, first you have your learning goals, your aims as a teacher. And then, “How do we empower students with choice in service of that goal?” So, I'll start with number sense because that's a hot topic. I'm sure you all hear a lot about it at the MLC. Mike: We absolutely do. Zandra: So, one of the things I think about when teachers say, “Hey, can you help me think about number sense?” It's like, “Yes, I absolutely can.” So, our goal is number sense. So, let's think about what that means for students and how do we build some choice and autonomy into that. So, one of my favorite things is something like, “...
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