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Use Task Cards Instead of Worksheets

Tags

Study Skills & Tools K-8 Strategy

Skills

Organization Working Memory Attention Visual Discrimination Processing Speed Spatial Perception

Use Task Cards Instead of Worksheets

If your student has difficulty with following through on tasks or gets easily overwhelmed

Teach It!

  1. Objective: Task cards will help break up or chunk tasks for students so the work feels more manageable than it does on a single page or worksheet.
  2. Teacher Takeaways: a) Instead of all questions or information on one sheet, break up a set of reading questions, math problems, or activities into task cards that have a single question or "to do" per index card. b) Assign a specific number of cards, or let a student work through cards at his own pace. This can be a confidence booster for students with slower processing speed or anxiety as they watch their finished cards pile up but without feeling like they must finish a certain amount.
  3. Considerations: Task cards make it easier to differentiate instruction, as you can give different task cards without students being aware or comparing. Index card boxes can hold task cards and keep them organized. Each student can have a box and have a section with "to do" cards and another section with completed cards. Use colored index cards as a visual cue to help students identify the order of tasks, the subject, etc.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Task cards are just another way to make information more manageable for students. A single problem can feel more achievable than a long worksheet. Task cards might also encourage students to show their work, rather than trying to cram or erase their work to stay on one page. For students with weaker visual, attention or working memory skills, task cards can simply make it easier to focus on a single problem at a time.