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Making Stations Work



I've posted a few times about my efforts to incorporate stations in my classroom this year. Inspired by Catlin Tucker, author of Blended Learning and one of the amazing educators I follow on Twitter, I want to create more opportunities to interact with my students and provide them with feedback AS they are working.  Overall, it has gone well.  However, one difficulty I have encountered is how to inform students of what they are expected to do at each station.  I thought that posting detailed instructions on my blog would be the best way.  WRONG!  I found that students often struggled to navigate back and forth between the various pages they might be visiting on their Chromebooks.  Also, some stations didn't even require a Chromebook, so it was kind of a pain for them to have to log in and find the instructions.  I thought back to what Alice Keeler, author of Ditch that Homework and Twitter Tweeter extraordinaire once said, "Slapping something online doesn't make it better!"  She is SO right.  Yet, I wanted to make whatever I did even more engaging and exciting for my students, so I decided to use a "menu" approach to stations!

 First, I watched a youtube video on how to create a brochure on Google Docs.  It was 19 minutes long but so easy to follow.  Because I wanted it to seem like a real menu, I knew I had to offer more choices at each station.  Here is a link to the brochure I created for The Outsiders. Feel free to make a copy and tailor it to fit your needs. I divided it into appetizers, salads, entrees, and dessert. Some stations allowed students to turn in digitally or write on paper.  One station required them to work with me on the essay they are writing.  


 When students arrived, I made them line up outside and "wait to be seated".  They had to tell me the number in their party.  Since several students are working together on their Passion Projects, it was important for them to be seated together since working on the project was one of the stations.  The kids LOVED it. I seated them and handed them their menus. I loved hamming it up for them.  Kids were on task the entire time and knew exactly what to do! I had NO questions.


 Afterwards, I had the students give me feedback in Google Classroom on the menu idea.  They all had positive feedback and one student even said, "I could tell you put a lot of time into this."  Awww! The only negative comment was from a student who said, "I'm still hungry."  HAHA!

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