5 Reasons to Use Digital Task Cards… We LOVE #4!

1. Digital Task Cards Provide One Click Differentiation

Differentiation is something that every teacher knows they need to be doing for every student every day. If we are being honest, it can be a little overwhelming! Having ready-to-use resources, like Digital Task Cards, for every student in our class doesn’t always happen! If some of your students have an assignment on the computer, you want all of your students to feel included. You never want to say, “The whole class has this one assignment except for you. You have this worksheet.”

Digital Task Cards are genius because when students go to pull up their assignments, they don’t know what is on every screen in the classroom. They all feel included. They don’t need to know that Johnny is doing 3 digit by 2 digit multiplication and that other Johnny over there is doing two digit by 1 digit multiplication. It’s our little secret that no one else needs to know! Oh ya, and I didn’t have to prep or create anything extra! Shhhhh!

2. Digital Task Cards are a Ready-to-Use Center

Another overwhelming task can be figuring out what to do with all of your students as you are pulling small groups at the back table. We like to use centers during this time, but centers can be a lot of work and prep! We love using Digital Task Cards as one of our centers. The Digital Task Card center needs no prep, students have built in directions, and the noise level is a 0! If you ask us, that’s a teacher’s dream-come-true! Now, you can focus on your small group instruction! By the way, if you need ideas on that, check THIS out!

3. Digital Task Cards Have Built in Motivation

We are always looking for ways to encourage our students to do well. Something we have been doing for years is placing the passing score to an assignment on the board to give students a goal to work towards. Sometimes, when students are given a computer assignment, they don’t take it seriously. They often will click through thinking that it is a “game.” Because each set of Digital Task Cards has a different amount of problems, we figure out what a passing score is and write it on this FREEBIE. BAM! Instant motivation!

Here’s a little trick we have learned… let students try again! Let’s say that there are 20 problems. A passing score would be 15/20 and higher. When we make a copy of the Digital Task Card set, we make 2 copies in our Drive. We label one the assignment’s name and we label the other one “2nd Try.” With one push of a button, I have everything I need!

Let’s say a student gets 14/20. The passing score was 15/20. He or she will come up to you and ask to try again. (By the way, another idea if you are working with small groups is to put a sticky note on your desk. Students can just add their name to the sticky note and you can do all of this in 1 step!) All you have to do is click the student’s name and you’re done! You have just helped your students gain some intrinsic motivation! What we love is that we let anyone try again. You will find students saying, “I got a passing score, but I think I can do better! Can I try again?” Why yes, yes you can!!!!!

4. Digital Task Cards are Self-Grading

And now for OUR personal favorite! Here is the #1 reason we can’t live without Digital Task Cards! Digital Task Cards are SELF-GRADING!!!!! We will say that again, “DIGITAL TASK CARDS ARE SELF-GRADING!” This is a life-saver! Students get IMMEDIATE feedback and SO DO YOU! With one click of, “Import Grades,” you have your ENTIRE class’ score right there in front of you! Now, you have more time to do ALL the other things! It can’t get any better than that!

5. Digital Task Cards Encourage 21st Century Skills

Our classrooms need to be fostering 21st Century Skills. Digital Task Cards are an easy way to do this. Students need to be able to use technology to access their curriculum. An easy way for teachers to get started is by using an online platform, such as Google Classroom, for students to complete assignments. Students need to be able to navigate through technology in order to get a task done.

There are many teachers that don’t know where to start. If this is you, we want you to know that we were once there too! We have a blog post just for you with step by step directions and even a video tutorial that walks you through assigning and even getting the scores from Digital Task Cards! Check THIS out!