Skip to main content

Free Form Stations-Give This a Try!

Everyone in education is talking about differentiation and UDL (Universal Designed Learning). For once, this is a bandwagon I want to hop on!  I have always believed in differentiation, choice, and helping students be successful using different paths.  Not all students work at the same pace, and not all students learn the same way.  Free Form Stations allow me to better meet the needs of all of my students.  I have used the regular Station Rotation model touted by the eminent Catlin Tucker, but I hadn't yet tried her Free Flowing Station model. We are getting ready to begin Animal Farm (which I have never taught before) and there is a vast amount of prior knowledge students need to truly appreciate this classic.  I thought this was the perfect time to give Free Flowing Stations  a try!






First, I made sure everything was ready to go in Google Classroom and that I had all the hard copies of handouts I needed.  I explained to students that they would have to complete all five activities but could do so in any order they would like.  I made sure they knew where to find the directions, as well as which assignments must be completed independently or with a group. The activities included analyzing The Lorax, watching an Edpuzzle video about allegory, reading a Newsela article about Stalin, vocabulary in context practice, and completing the anticipation guide for the novel.

It was pretty impressive watching students work through the activities.  They were on task and engaged.  Because some activities did not require my assistance, (watching Edpuzzle video and answering questions)I was able to work with the other students individually, provide feedback,  and answer any questions.



At the end of the period, I posted a question in Google Classroom asking for their feedback on our time together.  It was 100% positive.  Here are a few of their comments:

 In class today, we had the opportunity to chose what we wanted to do and who we wanted to do it with. I really liked this because it made learning and working on something typically not enjoyable to being enjoyable. Thank you, hope we do it again.

 I liked today because of the varieties and getting to work with people. The options helped us stay focus and helped us know what we had to finish.

 Yes, like the Giver has shown, choice matters. It's more fun when students are given free rein over how and when to do each assignment. That's my opinion, at least. 

 I loved it because it gave us time to move around and also it was very fun to have freedom and choose the projects you would like too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TQE: Get students Engaged and Digging Deep

I've mentioned before how Twitter has helped me grow as an educator.  Edutwitter is a valuable resource for book recommendations, new teaching methods, lessons, and articles.  One of my favorite educators to follow is Marissa Thompson, a high school teacher at Carlsbad High. This summer I read about her TQE(thoughts, questions, epiphanies) method for discussing literature.  I'd always longed for having discussions like the ones I had in my college literature courses, but when I try fishbowl or Socratic seminar with my students, the discussions felt forced, flat, and awkward. That changed today when I tried TQE for the first time.  Sharing homework in small groups Students writing their TQEs on the board When I listened to Marissa's podcast on Cult of Pedagogy ( check it out here ), I was intimidated. After all, her students are in high school and have a rock star teacher.  I think I read the transcript twenty times before finally trying it.  Here's h
5 comments
Read more

Writing an Essay...with a Partner

I love technology for collaboration! Teaching writing to middle school students is not easy.  All students come with different skills and knowledge.  With 35 students in a class, it's impossible to sit down one on one and assist students with the writing process.  Teaching students to write a literary analysis is particularly challenging because most seventh-graders have little, to no experience.  Students need to learn to  develop a thesis statement, find evidence from the text to support it, provide the context of the selected quotations , and write insightful commentary on the evidence they selected. Remember, these kiddos are twelve! Graphic organizers are particularly helpful to these young writers. The biggest challenge is providing feedback to students as they are writing, rather than after they turn their work in for a grade.  Students need to be able to use the feedback they receive and see the difference it makes in the final product.  I was adamant that I was not go
2 comments
Read more

Hexagonal Thinking

The last few weeks can be challenging. Keeping students engaged and learning is my mission! When I stumbled upon a post about hexagonal thinking, I knew I had to try it with my students. I am SO glad I did. Although this activity can be done digitally or on paper, I insisted that my students in class do it old school. My goal was for my students to have thoughtful discussions about what we read this year. Here's how it works! First, I came up with a list of key characters and ideas from The Giver, Animal Farm, and The Children's Story. I found this awesome generator on line where I could just type in my words, and it put them in the hexagons for me. Then I printed out the pages (there were three) for each group. I did a copious amount of research before embarking on this activity, and I was shocked by the number of teachers who cut the hexagons out for their students. That would have taken me HOURS. I simply gave each group scissors, and they were done in five minute
1 comment
Read more