Knowing exactly how to use a flex period can be tricky. Giving students choices in their learning can improve student engagement, motivation, and more, but fitting in student choice opportunities can be challenging, especially while still meeting curriculum, standards and testing requirements.
Nonetheless, flex periods are a great way to give students opportunities. Schools can offer interventions, enrichments, clubs, social-emotional learning, and more during a flex period.
By letting students choose how they’ll use their flex period time, schools can provide students with opportunities to exercise autonomy. In doing so, they also help students develop decision-making skills and feel more in control of their educational experience.
Read on to learn more about the benefits of student choice and how to use flex periods to help your school provide choice opportunities.
Why is Student Choice Important?
By supporting student choice, educators give students autonomy to explore their interests, and in doing so, connect their learning to what they care about. Students need to be genuinely interested and emotionally invested in their learning to thrive and achieve high levels of success. When students care about what they’re learning about, they’re motivated, which is essential to student engagement.
Student choice also supports the learning of essential skills. Even small shifts away from traditional teacher-led classroom models can give students opportunities to make their own decisions. In navigating their choices, students also develop other skills, including prioritization, problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, and more.
Why Student Choice is Important in Middle & High School
Elementary schools often offer “Choice Boards,” which empower students to decide which skills and strategies to develop. Starting in middle and high school, though, student choice opportunities can become harder to incorporate.
As multiple teachers take on different aspects of learning, each with limited time to cover extensive curriculum material, incorporating choice becomes more challenging. However, this can also be a critical time to prioritize student choice.
Middle and high-school students often feel they have little control over their lives. At the same time, this age group is known for having a strong belief in themselves and what they can achieve.
If adolescent students don’t have opportunities to express their independence and exercise agency, they can become unmotivated and disengaged. It’s significant for them as individuals to be allowed to make decisions and learn that they have responsibility for their outcomes.
5 Reasons Why Student Choice is Worth the Effort
Many education leaders and teachers recognize the value of student choice in the classroom. Finding the time to provide it, however, requires some planning. Here are five reasons why providing student choice is worth the effort.
1. Promotes Student Agency
Student agency involves both having choices and understanding how to make use of those choices effectively. Without agency, students may feel a lack of purpose, confusion, indecision, or feel powerless. By giving students opportunities to take charge of their learning, they learn that their interests matter and that they have the power to shape their outcomes.
2. Boosts Student Confidence
Empowering students through choice helps them develop belief in themselves. When they’re given the freedom to make decisions in their learning, they’re essentially taking small risks in a safe environment. Through these experiences, they gain increasing confidence in their ability to make decisions, solve problems, overcome obstacles, and set and achieve goals.
3. Increases Student Motivation
The correlation between effort, task performance, and completion is strong when coupled with the freedom of choice. Students display unparalleled motivation when presented with the opportunity to make their own decisions in the learning process. By giving students a say in their learning, their drive to succeed is cultivated.
4. Develops Student Autonomy
Autonomy means having the freedom to choose what we do and how we do it. Not really a skill, it’s more like a collection of abilities and beliefs that empowers a student to chart their own course. To develop autonomy, students need the opportunity to choose from alternatives and consider how each will impact them. When schools give students choices, they help them develop this important ability to make decisions independently and in a safe environment.
5. Improves Student Engagement
Providing students with a say in their learning is a powerful way to foster engagement. When students have the opportunity to decide how they spend their time at school, they become more invested in their education. They can explore their interests and individuality in a way that is uniquely their own, which leads to greater motivation and, in turn, engagement. By empowering students with choice, teachers support a more meaningful and relevant learning experience that inspires students to become active participants in their education.
How to Use a Flex Period to Provide Students with Choices
Fitting in opportunities for students to make choices can be difficult with the multitude of demands on educators, such as curriculum, standards, and testing. One way to find the time is through the implementation of flex periods.
Many schools use a flex period for intervention. But that isn’t the only way a school can use a flex period. Flex periods are an ideal way to provide regular opportunities for students to exercise their agency.
By using a flex period to offer intervention, enrichment, clubs, and more, schools can provide students with choices to develop their sense of individuality, control, and self-efficacy. Here are just a few examples of how schools are using a flex period to give students more say in how their time at school is spent.
Field Trips
In one high school, the physics teacher (we’ll call him Mr. Tom) wanted to put together a field trip to tour a physics research facility. Mr. Tom wanted to open up the opportunity to all students who might be interested, regardless of whether they were in his class, but he also wanted to provide them with some background to make the trip meaningful.
Mr. Tom extended the field trip opportunity to the whole school and used a flex period to offer the additional background non-physics students would need. Students signed up for and attended several extended learning sessions during the flex period so they would be prepared to ask valuable questions and make sense of what they experienced on the tour day.
Organizational Skill Building
Another teacher (aka Ms. Lee) couldn’t help noticing that some of her students were struggling to stay organized. Their bulging folders, crinkled papers, and missing assignments were a tell-tale sign that these students needed more help developing organizational skills.
Ms. Lee used a flex period to offer a session called Organization Nation, where she taught students skills to “tame the paper” and other executive functioning skills. She assigned some students that she knew needed help, but she left the session open to all students who wanted to voluntarily attend.
Career Exploration
A flexible period is a perfect time to invite community members in to share their experiences with students. One school used their flex period for a career day, when students were invited to sign up to attend presentations from one of several dozen speakers. Each presented on a different career path, ranging from health and human services to construction and engineering and beyond.
While this school dedicated an entire day to career exploration, a shorter flex period could just as easily be used. For example, you could offer a different career presentation each week during a regularly scheduled flex period, and let students decide which ones they want to attend.
Yoga & Mindfulness
A high school physical education teacher offered Friday Yoga sessions during a flex period. Recognizing that students can benefit from a few minutes to calm and focus their minds and bodies, this teacher encourages students to roll out the mats and find a little inner peace at the end of a tough school week.
These are just a few ideas for how schools can use a flex period to increase student choice— and, in doing so, realize improvements in student motivation and engagement. When a flex period is truly viewed as a flexible option during the school day, the possibilities are equally limitless.
Learn More About How to Use a Flex Period
To learn more about flex periods, check out these helpful resources:
- Flex Periods 101
- How to Start a Flex Period in Your Middle or High School
- Interactive Flex Period Planning Guide
Already have a flex period in your school? Discover how Securly Flex simplifies the planning and administration of flex periods. Learn more or schedule a demo.
