Everyone mentions task cards and you see them ALL. THE. TIME. If you haven't jumped on the task card bandwagon, you should because they are awesome! Why? Because they are a review for the students that can
go over a broad or specific topic. I love them because answer sheets and questions
are already included so they can be taken for a daily grade.
1. White board review I absolutely LOVE using this throughout the day or the week. Even better, task cards are great to use with white boards. Students write their answer on the white board, then show it to the teacher at the same time. It gives you instant data on how many students know the answer and what they might still be missing. Check out my blog post on how to use whiteboards in your class!
ex:
(teacher) What are the 3 causes of the Civil War?
(students write the answer on the white board and show it to the teacher on the count of three)
as a teacher, I notice that the students know that two of the causes are slavery and states’ rights, but many of them are forgetting about sectionalism. I know that I need to review that more in depth with them
2. Stations there are two main ways to use task cards for stations.
- (one topic) put 3-5 task cards at each station and have students rotate throughout the stations in order to break up the monotony of doing all the task cards at once. It also helps students not feel overwhelmed having to complete all of them
- (2+ topics) separate the task cards by topic and set up the stations according to that topic.
ex: when reviewing science, you could put 3 space questions at a station and add images/paraphernalia from NASA. Another station on earthquakes could have pictures of the San Andreas fault in California or a video of the aftermath in Japan.
3. Quiz Quiz Trade With this activity, students are given one task card and must look up the answer before them begin. Students then go around the room and quiz another student and trade task cards when done.5. Back to Back This is activity is a fan favorite because it gives students interaction. It's a mix of scoot and QQT. Have students partner up and give them their answer sheet on a clip board. If you have a subject like math or science, add an extra piece of scratch paper to do any calculations on. Then, the students stand back to back, but where they can both see the screen at the same time.
Bonus remediation (small group or one-on-one). after school tutorials, pick out 3 cards. the student picks 2 that they answer. continue until they have gone through all the cards. then, at the end, take the cards they didn’t answer and work with them on each task card one by one. this helps students filter out the material they know so you can pinpoint where they need help.