Stations...movement toward success
This is a written post to tie into my Podcast Download this episode (right click and save)
Welcome to my Podcast…today I would like to discuss Stations. Most elementary school teachers are familiar with stations, also known as centers. I’ll use the term stations here as it reminds me Star Trek. Yes, I am a Trekkie!
So imagine if you will…you’re on the USS Enterprise. The Enterprise is broken up into stations that help the starship run smoothly. There is the bridge, engineering, medical bay, and so on… Each station runs certain tasks that help the overall success of the starship.
Now, in the classroom, the same thing occurs. While stations are running, students gather in groups to accomplish certain tasks. At a set time, the groups shift to another station. The benefits of running stations are many. But why stations? Amelia Pellegrino says in her thesis, “Learning centers are a valuable teaching tool that allows students to explore new information independent of the teacher. These learning experiences are just as important as time the students spend with the teacher and should allow students to strengthen their understanding of the concepts being taught in the classroom”
Scholastic.com has a great little tutorial on centers in the classroom, you’ll find all the links to my references in this podcast; on my blog Technology Jedi. They say that during station time a teacher’s job is to:
- Observe
- Listen
- Ask questions
- Show what to do when help is needed
- Support first attempts
- Participate in activities
- Talk and have discussions with your students
- Help your students make discoveries and connections
- Share your knowledge and expertise
Janelle Cox explains on Teach hub that there is traditional and differentiated stations. Reading some of her comparisons she says,
- Teachers base differentiated stations on student assessment data, whereas a traditional station is based on whole-group instruction.
- In a differentiated station, students work within multilevel resources, whereas traditional station resources are not differentiated.
- Differentiated stations have tiered assignments, which include varied student responses, whereas a traditional learning station only has one level of response for all.
- Differentiated stations have tiered activities, whereas traditional stations do not.
Before starting stations one must first consider classroom management. As you can imagine, a teacher can’t just walk into class one day and announce that the students would now be working in stations, especially in the lower levels you’ll have some students who have never even heard of stations and you may hear quite a bit of…’say what?’
When beginning stations, as with any activity in the classroom, you must explain your expectations and rules to what should occur. Generally, there is a station board that indicates what group goes where when stations first start. Any good teacher knows that through clear expectations and practice stations can be a powerful tool to help your students succeed. Mindbloom by Rachel Lynette has a list of procedures to teach your kiddos as they learn how to do stations.
Stations are most often seen in elementary schools, but I’ve heard of middle and high schools being encouraged to use similar strategies. For instance: In my previous school district the 6th grade was blocked into three groups: Reading, Math, and Science/Social Studies. Although the science and social studies were 45 minutes each, being blocked by three gave reading and math class an hour and a half for class, this lead to the opportunity to work in stations. In my 6th-grade science class, I did use stations for labs where students could travel to different ‘stations’ to complete small experiments or measurements that supported the objectives being covered.
I encourage you to use stations in the classroom. It really makes for a more successful classroom.
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