What's happening in 6th grade?
Ebb and FlowMy first year in my new district was among the most challenging experiences I have ever experienced. That former American Idol rings true again in my head... What doesn't kill you makes you stronger! After extreme challenges in my first year, I'm back at it for year two here (seventh year teaching overall). I've always known classes to have different personalities, but my current class is perhaps my favorite class I have every taught in my years. There are many eager learners and simply kind kids! It's amazing how far kindness go. It's the ebb and flow of what I love to do: teach. Changes?
More About this Station Rotation BusinessStation Rotation is nothing new in education, nor is blended learning. Unlike Troy's popular song lyric, "This could be the start of something new," there have been and are going to be some huge paradigm shifts in my math classroom this year. Since I started in my new urban district last year, I have been event moreso reminded of the disparities between high and low achievers in the classroom. In my classroom, math abilities may span three to four (plus) grade levels, whatever that may mean. I've always known that students best respond in small groups but just haven't been able to figure out how to implement these effectively given the time allotted and materials available. The truth is... the materials were there. I needed to be creative in how my class was structured. The changes started with small group of high achievers in math. I was noticing that they were constantly working ahead on assignments and wanting to do more. I decided that the best way to meet these students' needs was to let them work ahead at their own pace. I started to create videos for these students and housing them inside Google Sites. The basic formula for a lesson is:
These four students have responded extremely well so far. They are very motivated to keep working along in the process. They are engaged and in a rhythm of learning. They also performed exceptionally on the assessments throughout. At the end of the day, if they aren't learning, I would need to reevaluate what was happening. They really enjoy this new structure! Keep in mind: this is a work in progress and a living thing... I hope to grow and change with the process as the kids provide feedback knowingly and unknowingly. Disclaimer: My goal is REALLY to provide more depth opposed to breadth to these students. Solely acceleration for the sake will not benefit these students. I hope to build in more authentic challenging learning opportunities as we progress throughout the year. That's it... Right? I've been learning about blended instruction for several years now and have adopted many blended practices such as hyperdocs and the playlist model. The playlist model worked very nicely in a middle school social studies classroom. It isn't quite what I'm looking for in my fifth grade classroom. This past Friday, the day after Halloween (You might be thinking... WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?), I decided to implement station rotation in Math. It was amazing! Granted, the students are already familiar with rotating in reading workshop, so it was not completely novel. yThe rotation was swell. I met with two groups of students who need more direct instruction while two of my groups worked on the self-paced learning lessons. The two small groups were great. Both of these small groups showed higher engagement in the small groups as more ownership of the material and instruction was placed on their shoulders.
This next week, I plan to add a third rotation where students are working on extension and collaborative projects with their small groups. I also plan to mix up the groups that see me for small group instruction. In this first attempt, I had them "ability" grouped which is probably not best for my struggling learners in the long run. Lastly, I plan to use ClassroomQ as a way to meet the needs of those working independently. While students are working and have questions, they can sign up to be in the Q, or queue. This is a work in progress, but also several years in the making. I've been learning about the station rotation model, but also using many of these tools over the years, therefore it has been a natural flow of events. Stay tuned.
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About MeLouie here! 5th Grade Teacher. Level 2 Google Educator. Love all things Google. 1:1 Chromebooks. Archives
June 2020
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