7 Engaging Ways to Use Task Cards

Kirsten 0:00

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm Kirsten at the southern teach, an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies. I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Kirsten 0:47

Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about one of my favorite classroom tools that I used consistently over the years, and that is task cards. If you've ever felt like your lessons needed a little extra spark or a creative way to engage your students, task cards might be the solution you have been looking for. They're versatile, engaging, and they can basically be used from independent practice to collaborative group activities, quick review games, small groups like literally, the sky is the limit. So in this episode, I wanted to walk you through seven ways you can use task cards in your classroom to enhance learning and make social studies lessons more interactive. The goal of this episode is that by the end, you're going to have some ideas that you can try out in your next Social Studies block or reading block or even math lesson. These can be applicable to pretty much any subject.

Kirsten 1:51

I wanted to start off with some background information about what task cards are, so that we are all on the same page. Task cards are essentially bite sized activities or questions that are printed on individual cards. Usually they're two to a page or four to a page, and you can cut them out and print them, laminate them, all that good stuff. You can think of them as mini lessons. Can use them as review questions that students can work on one at a time. And they are super versatile and can be used in about just any subject. So this can be a favorite for teachers who want to keep students engaged. You can put them on different desks, one task card per desk, or you can spread them out across the room, getting students moving and just keeping them engaged, while at the same time practicing specific skills or reviewing or learning content.

Kirsten 2:46

So the three main things of why they're so great. Number one: flexibility. You can use these task cards for independent work group activities, stations, and I've even used them in small groups, and even as assessments. Another reason why they're so great: engagement. They break up the monotony of your traditional worksheets that are on one page where everybody's working on them independently. There's a place for that, for sure, but it just breaks it up into something different, and it can encourage active participation. You can have students work in groups or in pairs, or they can do it by themselves. And then the third reason why they're so great: differentiation. Task cards can be adapted because you can meet the needs of all the learners, whether they're struggling or advanced. You can give them - have students do a certain amount of test cards based on their levels or - there's just so many different ways you can differentiate. So now that we have kind of put in the foundation baseline of what makes task cards so awesome, I wanted to share with you seven creative ways that you can use them in your classroom.

Kirsten 3:55

All right, the first way is with number one, independent reading and comprehension practice. Task cards are a really great way to help students focus on specific skills during independent reading. So for example, you could assign students a passage to read on their own, and then you can give them task cards with reading comprehension questions related to the passage, such as, What is the main idea? Name three details from the passage that you just read. What are some inferences you can make? So you're giving them some questions. They can be short answer, multiple choice, however you want to do it, and then encourage students to highlight or underline key information in the text to support their answers. One step further, you could even have them support evidence, kind of as the SCR the short constructed response, where they have to write their answer and then prove their answer in their response. You can have students practice that. So this method is really great, because it can help students practice those reading comprehension skills and critical reading skills while they're working at their own pace. And it's a great way to build confidence for students who might feel overwhelmed by larger assignments, like they're reading heavy text, you can break it apart, chunk it so that it's a lot more bite sized and manageable.

Kirsten 5:18

The second way to use task cards is through small group. This was one of my favorite ways. This is a great way, because they encourage discussion, collaboration at a small, intimate level. I loved to use them as a discussion group where you have a passage and a set of task cards in that group, and together, we're reading the passages, we're doing the tasks, answer the questions, agree on our answers go in a little bit more depth. Sometimes I would make it fun. I'd crumple up the task cards, put them in little easter eggs, depending on the time of year, or they could pick a question. So they may not really be doing the task cards in order. So they might - we might be doing number seven, first or number three, you know, just depending on what they choose. And then we work through the task on the task card together. Another idea within small group activities is a passage jigsaw. Divide the class into groups, assign each small group a different passage and corresponding task cards. Once they completed the passage and the task cards have the groups teach their topic to the rest of the class. So this is a great way to make students feel like an expert on their topic. This is especially great if there are task cards with different passages or different topics or concepts on each task card, and maybe they're in charge of two or three task cards and they're teaching the other students about their specific concept or topic.

Kirsten 6:56

All right, let's go into a third way to use task cards. This is through the use of a writing assignment. So going beyond the actual task card itself, it can be used to inspire something new. So one way is through compare and contrast. You can give students two passages, two task cards ask them to compare and contrast the concepts, people, events, using evidence from the text. They can write a separate paragraph comparing and contrasting the two ideas on the two different task cards. Another idea is through reflective journals. So if there is a task card related to a community member or character or historical figure, or maybe you know the narrator, have students write a journal entry from that perspective featured in the passage. So doing writing tasks beyond the actual task cards are a great way to encourage critical thinking, creativity, great for fashion finishers, great for students who are a little bit beyond grade level and need something else a little bit more challenging, but it also reinforces the content knowledge. Plus it's a really great way to practice using text evidence in writing.

Kirsten 8:08

All right, going into number four, the fourth way to use task cards is through stations or centers. This is another one of my favorite things, or ways I used to use task cards. You can set up task card stations around your classroom. This is just a really great way to get students moving, especially those kinesthetic learners, keeping them engaged. And you can do multiple task card sets at a time, or you can just have everybody work on one task card set. I have had it where my reading stations, we rotate through a station, there might be four or five groups in the whole class, and each group goes to the task card station. So the task cards are staying around the classroom all week, and each group on their designated task card day get to complete that activity. So that's just one way to kind of set it up. It's super flexible. I did not mind having task cards around the room, not a big deal. But you can have students rotate through the stations where they're reading the passages or doing the task and answering the questions on the recording sheet. So this really works well, even if you're doing it all together, like everybody is doing the same task card set, but everybody each has their own individual recording sheet. They're spread out around the room, especially if you have at least about 20 or 25 task cards, depending on the age of your students and how fast they work, it can, you know, foster some communication, and that's okay, but as long as you're getting the task done, it's just great to review content, introduce new content, and it helps you create those stations if you need to, with varying levels of difficulty. And it's just a really great way to move around.

Kirsten 9:58

All right, going into the fifth way to use task cards is through a formative assessment. So this is just an easy way to see, kind of check in how your students are doing and what they know. You can use them as an exit ticket, maybe have them just complete one task card question to show what they've learned. And if you've got 20 students and 20 task cards, you just randomly hand out task cards. They can circle it and show what they know, and that's just a quick check. Another way is, if you are teaching a specific topic, maybe they all have the same task card, or they're all on a sticky note. You just on the board, write the question or show the task card, and then they quickly do like a you know, you can do 123, or you can have them write it on a sticky note, ABC, whatever it is. They turn it in - just a quick check to assess student understanding. It does not have to be formal, it does not have to be time consuming, you do not have to grade it or anything like that. Just thinking of task cards as a formative assessment is a low pressure way to see how your students are doing, and you can adjust your instruction accordingly based on their answers.

All right number six, test prep or review. So if you have a test coming up, a big test, whether it is a standardized test or a district test or school test, this is just a great thing to put in before that assessment. You can use the task cards to create a review game, and play a game of scoot, where students are answering one task card at their desk and they rotate to the next desk to answer a new question. Basically, you take all the task cards, spread them out, kind of like what you would do around the room, except you have it on a desk, and you can time it, give them a minute to answer, and they scoot to the next question. And this is kind of best if they are individually at a task card or at a desk. So like if there's a person sitting at the desk, somebody has to find another spot. And usually I had them rotate in the order in which they were chronologically. So if you started at six, your next task card is seven, and 8, 9, 10, and so forth. Whereas, if I were to put task cards around the room, it's less review, it's just kind of more as a station. And I would usually for the ones that were around the room, I would put them in pairs, but students can work independently. Definitely no more than three people. It gets a little rowdy if you've got a group of three people moving around the room, but with the scoot game, I would put it at a desk and it would be just one person at a task card at a time. And you could also provide students with blank question templates and have them create their own task cards based on the material. So this is a new way to think of it is that they're creating the task cards themselves. So you could even give them a prompt or an assignment to maybe create a set of eight task cards and have a partner or have another group answer those questions. This is not only a great way to review, but it also helps deepen that understanding of the content, synthesizing their learning. But in general, using it as test prep or review can make review sessions more enjoyable and more interactive, and it's great for a variety of learners, visual learners, even auditory learners, if you're going over the questions after and the kinesthetic learners, just when they're preparing for tests.

The very last way to use task cards is through differentiation. It's great for differentiation. One way to kind of differentiate is pairing students together to read passages and answer task card questions. So just being strategic of if you are allowing pairs during task card activities, grouping struggling readers with stronger readers, and together they're reading the passages and answering those questions. I think one of my favorite things about, you know, hearing students work together in groups is that, you know, okay, like they talk about, Okay, who wants to read first? Oh, I'll read first, and they'll read out loud, and then they look at the questions and they actually discuss the answers. So I love that ability for students to collaborate and communicate, and that's why I love the idea of pairing students together, but if you want to differentiate it even more, just pairing strategically can help. You could also provide audio recordings of the passages for extra support. So get in beforehand, you could do audio recordings of each task card and question answer choices. You could always run it through like a text to speech source so that it is reading it for them. And there's also with advanced learners, just a quick idea for differentiating is to create higher order thinking questions on the task cards that require them to analyze, synthesize or evaluate so higher on the blooms taxonomy, higher order thinking. So for example, you could have students analyze the cause and effect relationships in a historical event. So, what were the causes? What were the effects? You know, what might have happened if something in this series of events didn't happen? Just giving those type of questions, even maybe taking some of the task card questions, running it through chat GPT, asking it, prompting it to make these questions a little bit more rigorous, higher order level thinking for the appropriate grade level that you're in. So when you differentiate your task cards, you can always ensure that every student is appropriately challenged and supported.

So to recap, the seven ways you can use task cards. Number one, independent reading and comprehension practice, small group activities, writing assignments, stations and centers, through formative assessment, test prep or review, and through differentiation. Whether you're using them for independent practice or small groups or writing assignments or test prep, task cards are such a great way and versatile tool to enhance learning and keep your students engaged. I in my store, in my membership and on TPT have a variety of task cards. I started creating grammar task cards. And a couple of years ago, a few years ago now, I created reading comprehension task cards that - they're different ones, different sets throughout the year, that practice important reading comprehension skills. But more recently, I've started dabbling into social studies concept task cards, and currently I have one for Black History Month, famous figures in black history, and I have one in westward expansion. But depending on interest, I will create more. So I'm super excited. Stay tuned for that. I hope this episode gave you some fresh ideas to try in your classroom. And if you loved this episode, I would be so, so grateful if you could share this with a teacher, you could leave a review, or just let me know how you use task cards in your lessons, whether it's social studies or in another subject. So until next time, keep inspiring your students and making social studies fun and interactive. I will talk to you again next week.

Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.