Task cards are great for your math classroom. They’re much more engaging than a worksheet, can be gamified, and now, even differentiated! I love allowing students to take ownership of their understanding and their learning by offering them choices. Differentiated task cards allow learners to choose appropriate problems for their current level – plus it motivates them to improve! I have created differentiated task cards for Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus topics.
Ways to Use Differentiated Task Cards in Your Classroom
Station Activity
A body at rest = a brain at rest! Keep kids moving around the room with stations activities. Differentiated task cards make a perfect self-checking stations task to compliment other practice activities.
Extra Practice
I teach a class called Algebra 2 Strategies, which helps lower performers increase their abilities and confidence in math. Differentiated task cards were perfect for a little daily practice.
Exit Ticket
Once you’ve taught the lesson its great to have students evaluate their understanding and try a problem on their own! Give learners a choice of what level problem to try out as their first attempt at practice.
Entrance Ticket
Similar to an exit ticket, an entrance ticket is used to check students understanding but this time it’s at the start of class! After students have had a chance to go home and practice on their homework, have them try a problem or two from task cards to start the next class.
Flashcards
Great for reviewing, these task cards can be printed out with the answers on the back. This allows students to check their work as they complete the practice problems, just like a flashcard.
Games
There are a TON of games you can play with task cards! You can have a whole group game, like Quiz-Quiz-Trade, or partner games. Use any traditional game (tic-tac-toe, chutes and ladders, anything!) and have students solve the problem on the card in order to earn their turn on the game. Since these task cards are differentiated by easy, medium, and hard you can assign different points to each problem (more points for harder problems)!
Review Previous Material
Offer students a few task cards from previous units to keep their knowledge fresh for an upcoming test or related topic.
Intervention
Use the task cards to evaluate students’ knowledge as you work one-on-one with them.
Create Test Review Grab-and-Go’s
Print out the task card sheets for students to grab as extra review before a test, or use a hole punch to create a binder ring of practice problems for students to pick up as they review for upcoming assessments.
Student as the Teacher Activity
One of my favorite ways to use differentiated task cards is to have a whole class “student as the teacher” activity. In groups of 3-4, students complete a problem together and check with each other to ensure they have the right answer. Then, one student stays at that table, and the rest rotate to a new table with a new card. The student who stays behind is the teacher for the new students, helping them if they get stuck while working on the problem and checking their answers. Repeat the process so that one student from each group remains behind to be the “expert” on that problem each round.
These are only a few suggestions for how to use differentiated task cards in your classroom. I feel a part 2 coming because there are so many fun things to do with them! In the meantime, you can read more about how to include differentiation in your classroom here.
Don’t forget: You can try these task cards for free! CLICK HERE!
Click here to buy these task cards for your Algebra 2 or Pre-Calc classroom. Let me know how you use them in the comments or continue the conversation on social media!
Happy teaching,
Natasha