Card Sort

Card Sort Procedure

This strategy gives students the opportunity to work with vocabulary, terms, and concepts. Students sort cards with the terms and concepts into categories based on meaning. Sorting the cards gives students a structure to talk meaningfully with one another about content and helps teachers check for understanding.

How to use

1. Select

Decide which concepts or terms you want students to learn from the current unit of study and prepare cards with the name of each concept or term. Make enough sets of cards for pairs or trios of students to use.

2. Sort

Have the students sort the cards into meaningful groups or matches. Depending upon the level of students, you may want to model the conversation students will have with one another to determine how to sort their cards or how to match them. A "closed" sort means that the teacher provides the categories for sorting. (Example: please sort according to nouns and verbs and other) An "open" sort means that students choose the categories themselves.

3. Discuss

Discuss the categories or matches. Ask groups to explain how they decided to sort their cards..

When to use

Use Card Sort at any point in the lesson to structure meaningful conversation:

Before beginning a new assignment to test prior knowledge After introducing new vocabulary

After learning about categories and classification

When a unit is completed to review concepts and terms

Variations

Concept Sort

Open sort with labels: Ask students to group terms or concepts into piles and have them write the name of the category or relationship on a blank card to be placed on top of each pile.

Resort

Ask students to sort the cards various times (2-3) in the same sitting and make different connections and categories for the terms/concepts. They should write the names of the new categories or relationships on blank cards to be placed on top of the differently sorted piles.

Ordering

Your cards could be events (like the colonization of North America), or steps in a procedure or process (like photosynthesis). Ask students to place the cards in order. This is often best done before formalized teaching of the subject occurs.

Matching

Your cards could be broken into pairs: an equation on one card, and its graph on another. A word on one card, definition on another. Students sort them into pairs.