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Using Task Cards is one of my favorite go-to ‘tools’ when it comes to engaging the students on a topic. Over the years of my teaching experience, I’ve learned to create and use task cards in a variety of ways. Covering easy questions to moderate level solution finding problems to complex to-dos, use of my task cards have been done to teach, assess, play games, which excites the students and keeps them engrossed and engaged in the class. Let us have a look at the list on different ways to use task cards, which is partially compiled from my practical experience and the rest from the experience of colleagues and friends that have used my task cards in their classrooms. Feel free to add to this list or suggest different ways of using task cards via sharing your thoughts on info@thesciencearena.com .

Ways to Use Task Cards:

  1. Stations or Centers for the classroom: Share set of printed task cards with the students and let them work on it. This can be done by creating either small or big teams and having them sit together on a table for a particular station or center. Usually, a group of 4 to 6 students can be given a set of task cards to supplement the completed story or chapter or topic. Getting the right answers can be a good small group activity.
  2. Scavenger Hunts: Place the set of printed task cards on different walls of your classroom. Students, either in pairs, small groups or big groups, can alternate between these task cards until they get all answers right. Allot credits or attach some objects to each set of task cards that need to be collected on providing the correct answers. Let them ‘hunt’ these task cards 😊 .
  3. Class Discussion: Utilize task cards with the all students of a classroom and initiate a discussion by asking them to share the reason(s) behind giving a particular answer for a particular task card. This can be a great idea to have different viewpoints on a particular topic or chapter. Use task cards as prompts to let students lead the discussion on given subject.
  4. Warm ups / Bellwork / Exit Tickets / Transitions – Use a selected set of task cards for warm ups to ensure students remember the content from previous class, which in turn is a requirement for quite a few classes to move forward in terms of content. It is similar to using task cards on previous topic and introduce the students to a new topic and get them excited about it. Alternately, end your class with few quick questions and confirm if the kids have grasped the info you shared. On similar lines, use task cards during transition times (before or after breaks / lunch times / end of day classes) of few minutes to engage the students or have fun with them.
  5. Extra Help for Struggling Kids: Most of the classes have a few students that struggle with understanding of the concept or registering the content as required for them to have a continuity as per the lesson plan. For these students, task cards can be of great, extra help to revise and revisit the topic(s) that they find difficult to remember.
  6. Assessment / Reviews / Revisions / Quiz: Utilization of task cards for assessments and reviews is one of the most common usages. They can be used as simple, quick reviews where kids answer the questions. Use task cards in a quiz format where students are divided into two or more groups; the one that gets the answer right in first attempt gets points and the group with highest points wins the quiz.
  7. Individual Seat Tests: Another common use of task cards, is to share different set of task cards with students and they answer them at their desk, making this method an individual seat test for them. Only a few students of the class may get common questions and if planned and distributed well, it is easy to ensure students with common questions are sitting at considerable distance from each other.
  8. Team Games: We have already discussed scavenger hunts and quizzes above. There is more scope to utilize task cards as games in a classroom format. Let’s take an example of Bingo! It is usually easy to make a Bingo board using the available task cards. Divide the classroom in multiple teams. The teams must complete the defined tasks diagonally OR in a column OR in a row to gain points. Again, the team with maximum points, wins. Scoot and Jeopardy are more examples of games where task cards are of great use.
  9. Projects: Depending on the subject, grade level and type of questions, quite a few task cards involve either finding a solution to a defined problem and/or writing assignments that need a specific timeline to complete. Use task cards of these kinds as a class project or assign them for ‘do-at-home project’.
  10. Homework Assignments: These are again common and task cards are a great way to allocate homework assignments.
  11. Interactive Notebooks: One part of Interactive Notebooks can be dedicated to task cards. After a topic or chapter is covered, using task cards to maintain a good review of that learning is fun as well as engaging for the students. They can cut and paste these task cards in their Interactive Notebooks and write their answers around them. When they use task cards for revisions, they can also write notes around these cards as a way to reiterate their learning. Task cards that are open ended in nature can also be utilized to journal the knowledge of students; and the same journal can be used for reviews and revisions.
  12. For Home Schooling and/or Tutoring: A lot of parents home school their children. And there are quite a few parents who need tutor help on particular subjects or topics. Task cards are very handy for homeschooling as well as tutoring kids on a variety of topics and subjects.
  13. For Fast / Early Finishers: Fast finishers usually need more when it comes to exploring topics and subjects. Use task cards with these early finishers to not only keep them engaged, but also to enhance their understanding.
  14. Boom Cards: Gamification meets task cards on the boom cards platform / technology. In the times of virtual teaching and distance learning, boom cards have been a huge boon to teachers as well as students. For teachers, assigning and tracking progress of task /boom cards is easy, while the students enjoy the instant review/correction of their answers while they ‘play’ with game-like cards. Use task cards on the boom platform and see your students having fun!
  15. Labs:In labs, task cards can be used as part of experiment or lab work report. Allocate a couple of task cards on each lab station and let students answer these questions to include in their findings / report of the particular lab work.
  16. Create and Use Task Cards for Different Ability Levels: This is an obvious, but not very commonly used method of utilizing task cards. A set of task cards differentiated based on ability of a group students, not only helps them but also keeps them engaged. In a single classroom, it is very easy to have 3-4 such different set of task cards for different groups of students, depending on their ability levels to grasp, comprehend and answer questions.

I hope you find some or all of these ways to use task cards helpful in your teaching journey. As a thank you note for my readers, here are links to:

You may also want to visit https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-Science-Arena/Type-of-Resource/Task-Cards in order to explore 50+ products / resources either full of task cards or having task cards as an important part of the package. These task cards are dedicated to science topics including general science task cards, biology task cards, chemistry and physics task cards, their units and sub-units suitable to teach multiple grades. Feel free to write to me on info@thesciencearena.com in order to share your suggestions, how you use task cards, request custom task cards or just say a HI 😊.

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