Beyond the Garden GATE: Tic Tac Toe Summer Research Project Starts the Year Off Right!

Remember writing "What I Did this Summer" when you were a kid? Our students want to share with us about their experiences over the summer, but most don't want to write a paper. As teachers, we all know that our students are unique with their own learning styles, so why not start the year giving students a choice of activities as they research more about something from their summer?

This is one of my favorite ways to start the school year, and new students come into my class looking for this assignment! There is that much buy in from the families!

What I do is give the students a tic tac toe board with various activities based on gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory. They must choose three activities in a row to complete, and they can choose a fourth activity for extra credit if they wish. The activities have been placed on the board strategically, so whatever three they choose will yield a variety of learning styles.

These presentations are presented orally to the class, but they are interesting for everyone. The topics that the students choose are so varied that it never gets dull, I've had students choose places they visited, things they learned, sports they played, and one student even did a study on the music of Disneyland! You get so much insight to your student's interests and their learning styles on the very first week of school!