More On Learning Stations

If you remember, I mentioned learning stations as one of the ways of differentiating instruction.  This is something I've had to learn to implement because it was not part of my teacher training.  In fact, learning stations and learning centers were something done only in the elementary classrooms.  This year I have 12 students spanning grades 7 to 12 with abilities from quite low to fairly high and this is a way I can meet the needs of everyone.

Learning stations can be used for differentiation, providing spiral practice for concepts, while helping students learn to take more responsibility for their own learning.  In addition, technology can provide some of the activities for students. Don't forget, when you have students working at the learning stations, you can pull small groups of students out for specialized instruction or additional support.

One of the best ways to introduce learning stations is to do it once a week.  Set up one day a week such as Fridays so students have the whole period to work through the stations.  If you set Friday as the day, you can use it to have students review the whole week's material.  For instance, station one has them review Monday's material, station two for Tuesday, station three for Wednesday, and station four for Thursday.  You can have a fifth station that everyone visits so you can provide small group instruction, scaffolding, or extensions.  

As far as rotation goes, if your students have difficulty moving from station to station, you can move the materials from station to station or have the stations set up so they can all be done on the computer.  It depends on what is needed.  I prefer to only do one or two activities on the computer because it is hard to do a quick assessment as they work but if I can spend a bit of time with them, it is easier to do a flying assessment.  Make sure the groups are small so if you need to, you can do double or triple copies of stations.  For instance if you have 30 students, you might have two of each station so no more than five students are at each station.

When setting up the stations, think of having one where they work with the teacher, others with regular type assignments, technology based activities, and some hands on items.  Make sure to have a big, loud timer so when it goes off, students hear it.  If you plan to have students rotate stations, make them practice rotating by setting a one minute timer and explaining expectations before they move.  

When you set up the groups, let them stay in the groups for the first two or three weeks so they get used to working and rotating.  In addition, think about how long each activity will take. You want the activity to take as long or longer than the time planned at the station so no one finishes early.  You don't want one station to take 5 minutes while another takes 20.  It needs to be fairly even.

Always change things up while keeping them the same.  For instance, if you have a technology component, always have the technology component but change the program they use each week.  In addition, have some way for students to self-check work with an answer key, form, or QR code. Next time, I'll discuss some more details about what activities to use with learning stations for middle and high school students.  Have a great day.