The following collection features Digital Choice Boards and other interactive learning materials for use by K-12 and college teachers and students for history, social studies, civics, and mathematics/science learning. The collection has been developed by College of Education faculty members Robert W. Maloy, Torrey Trust, and Sharon Edwards along with undergraduate and graduate students from their classes.
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Math Tutoring Choice Board (Version 2)
Sharon A. Edwards, Robert W. Maloy, Torrey Trust, Madeline Hill, and Sara Shea
This choice board invites students and teachers to
- Draw math comics about mathematical concepts.
- Create a 3D monument to honor women mathematicians.
- Make a math story using stop motion animation.
- Write a poem using the Fibonacci sequence in nature.
- And many more ways to explore and learn math.
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Bookcase for Young Writers
Sharon Edwards, Robert W. Maloy, and Torrey Trust
Bookcase for Young Writers is a free web companion to our book Kids Have All the Write Stuff: Revised and Updated for a Digital Age published by the University of Massachusetts Press in December 2019.
This online bookcase has virtual shelves filled with literature, apps, and interactive digital tools to inspire children from preschool and kindergarten through the upper elementary grades to become confident, expressive, creative young writers.
The bookcase includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as picture books, chapter books, and e-books. There are links to child-engaging information and topics related to all the writing ideas in the Book.
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A Tai-the-Math Historian AI-Enhanced Time Travel Adventure!
Robert W. Maloy, Sai Gattupalli, and Sharon Edwards
Also available online at https://usablemath.org/
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Women in Journalism and Media
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students and teachers to:
- Create a multimedia timeline for the first lady of the Black press, Ethel L. Payne.
- Design a graphic highlighting the work and careers of women in sports journalism.
- Curate a digital collection of artifacts about women photojournalists/
- And more ways to learn about the histories and herstories of women in journalism and media
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American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy, Torrey Trust, and Sharon Edwards
This choice board invites students and teachers to:
- Write proposals to restore native names to local geographic places.
- Learn about the contributions of American Indian code talkers during World War II.
- Create trading cards of pre-contact American Indian dwellings and the biomes where they were found.
- Discover many more activities about First American histories and cultures from past to present day.
"Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix."
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Math Learning Digital Choice Board
Sharon A. Edwards, Sara Shea, and Maddy Hill
This choice board invites students to:
- Make a stop motion animation to teach a math concept.
- Make, fly, and measure your own paper airplane designs.
- Evaluate how math is used in digital games.
- And explore more math learning topics and learn about math and writing connections at our Bookcase for Young Writers.
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Writing Poetry: Digital Choice Board Activities for National Poetry Month and All the Other Months Too!
Robert W. Maloy, Sharon A. Edwards, and Torrey Trust
This board invites students and teachers to:
- Take a Haiku or Sciku Hike
- Learn about Langston Hughes and His poetry
- Write a Two-Voice Poem with a friend
- Discover more new-to-you poetry forms and record podcasts of what you write
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Usable Math
Robert W. Maloy, Sharon Edwards, Sai Gattupalli, and Sara Shea
Usable Math is an open educational resource that provides interactive problem solving practice for 3rd through 6th grade students who are learning mathematical reasoning and computation through word problems. The site features four virtual coaches -- Estella Explainer, Chef Math Bear, How to Hound, & Visual Vicuna -- who offer reading, computation, strategy, and visual strategies for solving problems. The coaches offer hints and feedback to support a wide range of problem solving strategies for students with different levels of knowledge.
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Ancient China Digital Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy, Emily Morin, and Sara Shea
This choice board invites students to:
- Design a canva presentation about the building of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal.
- Write travel diaries based on the journeys of the Ibn Battula and Marco Polo.
- Learn about ancient Chinese rockets and build your own bubble-powered rocket.
- And explore many more topics presented in the resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.
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Africa in Global History Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Create a graphic novel about the city of Timbuktu as a center of learning and trade.
- Build a pyramid with found materials at home while exploring how and why they were built in the past.
- Propose a climate action change plan to address environmental challenges in various geographic places throughout the continent.
- And explore many more topics that are presented in the resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.
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Asia in Global History Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Construct and augmented reality exhibit of the Indus Valley Civilization.
- Design a 3D model of an ancient Chinese invention.
- Create a jamboard about the impacts and influences of Gandhi's doctrine of nonviolence.
- And explore many more topics that are presented in the resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.
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Asian American Pacific Islander Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Design a mural or sculpture for units of Asian American soldiers during World War II.
- Build an interactive timeline of landmark court decisions involving Asian Americans.
- Write and illustrate a non-fiction comic about the first Chinese American women Air Force pilots.
- Draw a movie poster or write a script for a TV show about the life and times of the last Queen of Hawaii.
- And explore many more topics that are presented in the resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki and Building Democracy for All eBook.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.
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Black History Month Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board explores how to:
- Describe the life of the first Black woman pilot Bessie Coleman and construct their own paper planes and fly them inside and outside.
- Design a digital story about Marian Anderson, a singer and Civil Rights activist, that connects her experiences to the experiences of Black people today.
- Explore the history of redlining in their state and draft a law that would address the issues that redlining has caused.
- Curate a digital collection about Black baseball players who weren't allowed to play in the majory leagues.
- And explore many more topics covered in Building Democracy for All "Black Lives Matter" Learning Pathway.
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Black Lives Matter Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board explores how to:
- Learn about protest songs and write a protest song for the Black Lives Matter movement.
- Create a video exploring the history of Black athletes who have engaged in protests.
- Learn about Zelda "Jackie" Ormes, the first African American woman cartoonist, and create a cartoon about her life.
- Explore the contributions of Benjamin Banneker and George Washington Carver to math, science, and politics, and create 3D digital artifacts that represent these contributions.
- And explore many more topics that are covered in Building Democracy for All "Black Lives Matter" Learning Pathway.
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Civil Rights Transportation Protests Digital Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Write an online blog post about Elizabeth Jennings Graham and the end of racial segregation on New York City streetcars.
- Create a video, book, or movie trailer about Jackie Robinson's 1944 court matrial trial for refusing to give up his seat on a military bus.
- Build a 3D monument - with hand materials or a 3D modeling tool (e.g., Tinkercad) - for John Lewis, James L. Farmer and the Freedom Riders.
- And explore many more topics in The Role of Political Protest in the Building Democracy for All eBook.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.
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Current Events Through the Lens of History Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board explores how to:
- Create an interactive digital story about space exploration from the Cold War to present day.
- Evaluate how climate change has been addressed throughout history and draft a proposal for an initiative to reduce the impacts of climate change.
- Create an infographic comparing the COVID-19 pandemic to other pandemics in history.
- And explore many more topics that are covered in Building Democracy for All "Current Events" Learning Pathway.
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Election 2020 Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board explores how to:
- create a public service announcement to increase citizen participation in the election process
- evaluate voting reform proposals
- learn about Gerrymandering
- create a Sketchnote or interactive timeline detailing the history of political parties
- and many more topics that are covered in Building Democracy for All
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Europe in Global History Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Create 3D digital artifacts to represent the work of a Renaissance artist or painter.
- Design a digital poster or TikTok-style video about the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Code a Scratch animated story about the impacts of the Industrial Revolution on different social classes in European society.
- Remix present-day song lyrics to create a song about the meaning of the Berlin Airlift or the Berlin Wall.
- And explore many more topics that are presented in the resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.
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Foundations of the U.S. Political System Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Explore the foundational features of democracy and evaluate whether social media platforms uphold these features in their community guidelines.
- Write a script for a TV show or movie that portrays Native Americans accurately and explores how Native American government shaped the U.S. government.
- Write an opinion piece about whether the Internet would have been a public utility in the Roman Empire.
- Compare how women Enlightenment thinkers are presented online to how women in science and politics today are presented online.
- And explore many more topics that are included in Critical Media Literacy and Civic Learning "Foundations of the U.S. Political System" Topic.
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Freedom of the Press and News/Media Literacy Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Evaluate and suggest ways to improve the U.S. ranking on the World Press Freedom Index.
- Critically analyze newspaper photographs.
- Write news reports about an issue from different perspectives and political leanings.
- Design an instructional tool that will help people to critically evaluate news sources.
- And explore many more topics that are covered in Critical Media Literacy and Civic Learning "Freedom of the Press and News/Media Literacy" Topic.
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History of the Black Press in the U.S. Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Explore how Frederick Douglass fought against slavery and for equality as a writer and a journalist.
- Create an interactive timeline about the history of the Black Press in the U.S.
- Explore Benjamin Banneker's Almanac and write almanac entries of your own.
- Build a 3D monument that showcases the accomplishments of pioneering African American women journalists.
- And explore many more topics related to the Black Press in the U.S.
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Institutions of U.S. Government Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Create a movie trailer for a film about the separation of powers between the branches of the U.S. government.
- Write a press release about a Presidential Impeachment.
- Critically evaluate how members of Congress use social media.
- Design an infographic or interactive timeline that presents political campaigning in the past, the present, and future.
- And explore many more topics that are included in Critical Media Literacy and Civic Learning "Institutions of U.S. Government Choice Board" Topic.
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Middle East (SWANA) in Global History Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Design a number system and write a problem for others to solve.
- Write a script and design a poster for a modern-day movie based on the story of Gilgamesh.
- Curate a Wakelet collection of digital resources highlighting the history of Israel and its Arab neighbors since 1948.
- And explore many more topics that are presented in the resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of htis choice board to remix.
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National Hispanic Heritage Month Digital Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students and teachers to:
- Write a diary of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo's explorations and encounters with Native peoples in California.
- Create an interactive timeline of Sylvia Mendez and the struggle for equal education for Latinx children.
- Design a 3D monument celebrating Roberto Clemente's accomplishments as an athlete and activist.
- And explore more topics in Latinx history.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.
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Science & Technology in U.S.History Digital Choice Board
Robert W. Maloy and Torrey Trust
This choice board invites students to:
- Construct an augmented reality exhibit of First American cities.
- Write an interactive digital story about automobile innovation from the Duryea brothers to self-driving cars.
- Create 3D digital artifacts representing the work of 19th century African American inventors.
- And explore many more topics presented in resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki & Building Democracy for All eBook.
Go here to make your own Google Doc copy of this choice board to remix.