The University of West Georgia’s College of Education hosted the 7th annual Learning Festival in May 2013.
This year’s event was a conference-style program that highlighted current trends and practices in education while featuring interactive sessions. In one of the sessions, Ashley Wilkes, a fifth grade teacher at Brooks Elementary in Coweta County, discussed how to use choice boards in order to have differentiated instruction and success with student choice. She explained how choice boards allow for various specific skills to be targeted through planned activities. Students may perform the task independently, in a small group or even with the instructor.
“Giving [the students] things like this to do allows the students to challenge themselves,” she says. “Even if you give the students free choice and they pick the choice that is more on their level anyway, make them choose more than one to do.”
Karen Clevenger, a physical education instructor at UWG, also hosted a session where she demonstrated to participants how to add movement to the content areas when teaching P.E. She tossed a plastic grocery bag in the air to show how physical movement stimulates the brain, which then increases optimal student learning.
For more information on the College of Education, please visit www.westga.edu/coe/.
