By the end of the semester, all classes that are teaching the same course are meant to have learned the same content, yet a student in each classroom could undergo a vastly different learning experience depending on the work that their teacher decides to assign— with the quality of their education hanging in the balance.
Teachers should give students choice in the content of their coursework, how they show it and the process they go through to make it.
Some would say that offering more personalized options would bring a more chaotic environment in the classroom, and therefore strict standardization is the best way to operate, but one-size-fits-all narratives about education fall flat in practice due to the unique needs of every student — the way assignments are given should reflect that.
According to the Institution of Education Sciences, students are less engaged and show lower motivation when they aren’t granted agency in the angles their work focuses on, the medium through which they present their learning and the process they go through to complete it — a serious issue when considering that only about 10% of assignments on average offer students flexibility in these areas.
Ways to implement this in a classroom can look like providing various subtopics for a student to engage with under a broader directed subject, letting them pick from different ways to show what they’ve learned, and giving them space to determine the best timelines and methods to meet their deadlines according to their unique schedules.
The best way to get students to care about their schoolwork is to let them be involved rather than micromanaged. Teachers should design their assignments to allow their students to show how they individually excel.
