What is Tic-Tac-Toe differentiated instruction?
Daniel Johnson
Published Mar 06, 2026
What is Tic-Tac-Toe differentiated instruction?
Put simply, “Think-tac-toe is a strategy that allows students to chose how they will show what they are learning, by giving them a variety of activities to chose from,” notes teaching blog, Mandy Neal. A think-tac-toe assignment could provide an alternative way for students to learn and show what they know.
What is differentiated instruction by Carol Ann Tomlinson?
As Carol Ann Tomlinson has said, differentiation means giving students multiple options for taking in information (1999). Differentiating instruction means that you observe and understand the differences and similarities among students and use this information to plan instruction.
What is a tic-tac-toe menu?
➢ A Tic-Tac-Toe Menu is a differentiated strategy that provides options. for learners to practice skills, try new products, and work with a variety of resources as they learn. ➢ Students can make three choices according to a contract.
What is a choice boards in differentiated instruction?
A choice board is a graphic organizer that allows students to choose different ways to learn about a particular concept. In addition, you can require that students complete items from the choice board in a specific way, such as choosing three choices in a row, or you can let students choose at random.
How do you use a tic-tac-toe board?
- The game is played on a grid that’s 3 squares by 3 squares.
- You are X, your friend (or the computer in this case) is O. Players take turns putting their marks in empty squares.
- The first player to get 3 of her marks in a row (up, down, across, or diagonally) is the winner.
- When all 9 squares are full, the game is over.
What are Think dots?
ThinkDOTS is a great activity for students to construct meaning for themselves and to engage in processing their learning. It is a strategy used to review, demonstrate, and extend thinking. Choice is given to the students but they still complete the required learning tasks – just in the order they roll the die.
Where are choice boards used?
Teachers can provide as many or as little choices as desired on a board. They are appropriate to use for centers, independent work activities, early finishers, assigned as homework, or even given for distance learning assignments.
What should a choice board include?
Most importantly, a choice board should provide options that target students’ multiple intelligences. While your choice board might have common activities like writing an essay, it could also include more atypical activities like drawing a picture, watching a video, or choreographing a dance!
How do you use the tic tac toe method?
One way is to use a tic-tac-toe method, also called a think-tac-toe, to organize learning activities. This strategy uses the familiar three-by-three grid of a tic-tac-toe board into which the teacher inserts different activities in each square. Students choose three activities to create ‘three in a row,’ just like playing the original game.
How many squares are there on a tic tac toe board?
You may have noticed that there are only six levels of understanding but nine squares on a tic-tac-toe board. When designing tic-tac-toe boards for his classroom, Mr. Kotter needs to repeat three levels; he chooses which based on his learning objectives.
What skills do students need to make tic-tac-toe boards?
Students may also choose to synthesize information by rewriting, modifying, integrating, composing, or rearranging. Finally, students can evaluate content by measuring, ranking, judging, discriminating, arguing, and convincing. These skills, listed from lowest level to highest, are important when creating a tic-tac-toe board.
What is the purpose of think tac toe?
For Educators. Think-tac-toe is a strategy that harnesses the visual pattern of the tic-tac-toe game to broaden student understanding of instructional content, challenge students who already have some mastery of a subject, and provide a variety of means to assess student mastery in a way that is fun and unusual.