Excellence in Education: Learning Centers
I've seen many teachers, especially in collaborative settings, use Learning Centers as a diferentiation strategy but it's probably even more effective in upper-level classes where mixed abilities are sometimes even more pronounced.
Learning centers or stations consist of materials that enable students to explore a topic or practice skills. Centers provide incredible flexibility as you can set up stations for enrichment, skill acquisition, and/or remediation. They work exceptionally well with flexible grouping meaning students can be grouped heterogeneously, by ability, or by interest.
Students can rotate from station to station or you can assign--or allow students to choose--one or two stations. For example, stations can be set up to match the learning task with a student's learning ability. In this scenario, students could be placed in groups based on their abilities with students who have mastered the task being permitted to explore further or perform enrichment activities. Alternatively, you could assign these students as peer teachers/coaches at the various stations.
Another option would be to create stations based on student interests. In this example you may have five different stations with each station approaching the learning target in different manners. This could vary from allowing the students to chose between a podcast, a reading, a webquest, a cooperative learning activity and a video. Or, you could approach a learning task based on student interests; as an example on a unit on statistics a teacher could have stations set up to look at statistics in sports, marketing, school discipline data, demographics, etc.
Tips:
Learning centers or stations consist of materials that enable students to explore a topic or practice skills. Centers provide incredible flexibility as you can set up stations for enrichment, skill acquisition, and/or remediation. They work exceptionally well with flexible grouping meaning students can be grouped heterogeneously, by ability, or by interest.
Students can rotate from station to station or you can assign--or allow students to choose--one or two stations. For example, stations can be set up to match the learning task with a student's learning ability. In this scenario, students could be placed in groups based on their abilities with students who have mastered the task being permitted to explore further or perform enrichment activities. Alternatively, you could assign these students as peer teachers/coaches at the various stations.
Another option would be to create stations based on student interests. In this example you may have five different stations with each station approaching the learning target in different manners. This could vary from allowing the students to chose between a podcast, a reading, a webquest, a cooperative learning activity and a video. Or, you could approach a learning task based on student interests; as an example on a unit on statistics a teacher could have stations set up to look at statistics in sports, marketing, school discipline data, demographics, etc.
Tips:
- Include learning targets for each station and have a means to check to ensure student understanding and completion of the task. A learning log where students monitor and track their own progress is a great way of accomplishing this.
- As a teacher, you have multiple choices including wandering throughout the classroom to check for understanding/asking prompting questions or you may work with students, especially those who are struggling, at one station, or any sort of combination.
- Alternate assignments to groups between teacher and student selection.
- Provide the necessary structures and supports to ensure students can work collaboratively
- Students don't have to work at all centers
Learning centers provide diversity in student learning by encouraging students to develop both academic and social skills while providing opportunities for learning and formative assessment. The use of learning stations allows you to break the class into direct instruction, practice and enrichment activities while fostering independence and interdependence.
Need to Knows
January 22: Flex Day for staff, Please be sure to draft students for Mustang Morning. All students with a D or F in your class must be drafted. Stickers will be in your mailboxes on Tuesday for distribution during 1A on Wednesday.
January 26: A-Day with Long Lunch and Mustang Morning (students should go to their Monday Mustang Morning assignments)...schedule at bottom
January 29 at 9am: Grades and Special Education Progress Reports Due Please click here to access the spreadsheet for special education progress report feedback. A few reminders:
- Tabs for each teacher are located along the bottom in alphabetical order. Please find your name (spreadsheet will automatically open to Allen) to complete forms for your students.
- We are only doing these quarterly, thus it is imperative that you provide meaningful feedback (details below).
- Your collaborative teachers can absolutely help you fill these forms out. You (and your collaborators) are responsible for ensuring all forms are complete.
- Some of these goals will not apply to your classes. N/A is an acceptable response. For many goals, you may not be responsible for measuring it but students are still performing that skill in class; in those cases, you should be commenting. For example, many students have reading goals and in most classes students are expected to read, so a comment on that goal SHOULD be made.
- Please make sure you are logged into your k12albemarle account.
- If you notice mistakes in the spreadsheet (students are not on your list but should be, students are on your list but shouldn’t be) please email me. If you notice mistakes in the forms themselves, please email the case manager that created it.
- Please productive meaningful feedback:Goal: The student will increase comprehension of a variety of printed materials
Student has done a tremendous job developing his skills in this area. Student has been bombarded with primary and secondary sources throughout the year in United States history. While I would say student has reached mastery level comprehension of primary source texts, such as newspaper articles, political cartoons, and speeches, and secondary source texts, he is progressing towards mastery of more challenging primary sources, such as domestic and foreign policy statements, speeches with historical and religious references, and acts of legislation with complicated legal syntax.
Goal: The student will increase the ability to describe and make generalizations through patterns and functions and represent them in multiple ways
History is all about making generalizations based on patterns and functions. Student is expressing those generalizations through class discussion, short-answers responses, document evaluations papers, and thesis statements. Student is demonstrating consistent progress towards developing sophisticated generalizations through these methods
These are two examples from a history teacher. The second goal may seem like it only applies to math but feel free to provide feedback based on how the goal applies to your class and how the student is doing towards mastery. Any type of data that you have to share enhances this feedback even further.
Non-examples of productive, meaningful feedback would be to see grade in PowerTeacher, “student is doing well”, “passing”, “failing”, etc. If you would like for me to meet with you to look at specific students and goals, please reach out.
Entering Grades
- There should on be 1 assignment with the date range of 1/20 and 1/22/2018 and that should be the midterm or final exam. All other assignments should be dated prior to 1/19 to be included in the T2 (1st semester category).
- February 1st: Choir and Orchestra Concert
February 9: School Safety Survey with extended 1st block
February 19: Normal School Day
Interested in the Young Adult Literature Book Club? Here’s the info I just finished Long Way Down and can say it's an interesting and easy read.
Field Trips
February 8-9: Model UN to Baltimore
February 9: District Chorus
Birthdays
None this week
Useful Links
LTI Newsletter on computational thinking/coding❢❢
Activity Period Calendar : On Friday we will be using an A-Day schedule. Students should report to their A-Day Mustang Morning Assignments.
Technology / Website Permission Request Form Please use this form to request use of a website or any resource that requires student log-in if the site is not already on the approved list. DART approved list
Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm Please be sure to have announcements cued and ready to go at 8:55 every morning.
Announcement Request: http://tinyurl.com/requestannouncement
Worth Your Time
More Calendars
February 14th LoveFest Schedule
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0 Period
7:40-8:40
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1A
8:55-9:40
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1B
9:45-10:27
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2A
10:32-11:14
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2B
11:19-12:44
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3A
12:49-1:31
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3B
1:36-2:18
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4A
2:23-3:04
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4B
3:09-3:50
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Friday Schedule with Long Lunch
A-Day
January 12, January 26, February 16
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“0” Period (7:40 – 8:40)
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1st Period
8:55-10:15
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Mustang Morning
10:20-10:55
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2nd Period
11:00-1:00
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3rd Period
1:05-2:25
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4th Period
2:30-3:50
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