choice
December 30, 2016
Revealing that some themes consistently speak to what we need to hear and want to use, the top Musicuentos post of 2016 was a simple repost of the previous year’s homework choice systems update. The post explains how I incorporate a homework choice system and offers links to see what other teachers do as well. […]
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August 5, 2016
Have you thought about adding student choice to spice up your concept of homework and increase student motivation? Have you already been using student choice in homework for years but could use a few new options or a change in assessment system? Here is my kind of prerequisite annual post on options for homework choice. […]
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December 15, 2015
Voice and choice! Right? Well, if the sheer volume of content under my “choice” tag is any indication, I believe so. I’m convinced by research on autonomy and purpose that if we can give students options that speak to their inner motivation, then and only then will we end up with significant percentages of proficient speakers out […]
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December 13, 2015
After years of teaching students between Novice High and Intermediate Mid, I found myself teaching students with no measurable proficiency. They did not know what loco meant (and had never heard of Zorro!?!) (and hated all heartthrob boy bands?!?!). It was new territory for me. And it was time to take a look at my homework choice […]
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August 13, 2015
What would homework choice look like for elementary students? I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me to ask this question earlier. I knew this year I was going to have a group of students ages 6 to 10 but I thought I’d just give them the same options sheet as my older group. Ha! […]
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August 7, 2015
Easily one of the top five topics if you look at my most popular blog posts: Choice in homework. I won’t go to deeply into what I mean by homework choice because you can see a pretty good summary here in one of the most popular posts of 2014. After you look at that, you […]
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May 11, 2015
Every once in a while I come across an authentic resource so amazing I have to give it its own blog post to tell you USE THIS RESOURCE. And then there’s this one, which makes me shout #addthis and #bookmarkthis and THEN it leads me straight into an example of something I was just asking […]
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December 5, 2014
Before you read the ninth most popular Musicuentos post of 2014, in which I argue that Genius Hour (also known as 20 Time or 20% Time) is philosophically incompatible with teaching novice language learners, you have to promise me that you’ll click the links at the bottom to Laura Sexton’s blog, because if anyone could […]
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November 25, 2014
My first trip to the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages was amazing. Well, there was the thing where I didn’t have any kids with me for a few days. I adore my children, but a few days off was much needed! Honestly, I didn’t get to attend many […]
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August 26, 2014
When I posted last year about my latest update on the Elige tu propia aventura homework choice activity, the post quickly became one of the top 10 of the year. Accordingly, I frequently receive requests for my list of options and how I divided them into a point system. The problem is that I was experimenting […]
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January 17, 2014
Sometimes, the business world comes up with a really great idea that works well in education. Sometimes, that idea catches on like wildfire and makes a big difference for student learning. Sometimes, it doesn’t. At least, not for everyone. Particularly those of us who might be considered “early adopters” have a bad habit of hearing […]
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December 24, 2013
2013’s third most read post is about an update to my most popular project, homework choice. Stay tuned in 2014 for how these updates are going in my class – including one student’s feedback call to Nescafe. The homework choice approach is probably my most popular idea ever (it’s a toss-up between that and the […]
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