I was starting to hate my job. It was the latter half of the school year. Spring Break was behind us. State testing was before us. I was dragging my students through lesson after lesson, preparing them for the state writing exam. I was competing with Fortnite for their attention and losing. Engagement was at an all-time low, and testing was coming at us at light speed.
The thought of spending 84-minute periods struggling through whole-group lessons made me dread every day.
I have always had a good rapport with my students, but no one is more disruptive than a seventh grader who has completely checked out of your lesson.
I needed a change, and so did my students. I am no stranger to evolving as a teacher, as I discussed at great length in my post about ditching interactive notebooks.
If something isn't working, change it. Immediately.
I was always terrified to run stations in my classroom for several reasons. One, I am a total control freak, and the thought of students being left to their own devices to complete a task on the other side of the room confounded me, and two, I was afraid that my students would not be able to take responsibility and control their impulses. I imagined a classroom management disaster.
Buuuuut if I had to spend one more day standing in front of 20 bored teenagers droning on about thesis statements, I was going to jump off of the balcony outside of my classroom. I was bored.
If teaching ever stops being fun, stop what you are doing immediately and make changes.
I decided to stop whole-group instruction cold turkey. I ran my students through stations for the rest of the school year and learned from that experience how to effectively run an entire class without ever doing a single whole-group lesson.
The following school year, I began doing this the first week of school. As we all know, the first two weeks of school are the most critical time for classroom management. This is when you establish your routines and expectations and teach students essentially how to navigate their way through your class.
Stations are my normal. I see my students in small groups every day. My students tell me that my class is their favorite because they never get bored. I never get bored.
I want to share some pointers for anyone who is either dragging themselves and their students through whole-group lessons, trying to use whatever collaborative strategies to make it less horrible and just counting down until Friday afternoon, or anyone who has been considering moving to a small-group station/rotation model and is a control freak like me and totally terrified to take the leap.
1. Set your physical classroom up in preparation. Decide where your stations are going to physically be. Where will you station yourself to work with a small group? Is it accessible to technology? Are all materials you may need nearby? Consider facing groups away from each other.
This is the computer station in my classroom. Students face away from the front of the classroom.
This is my "work with the teacher" station. Students sit at this table, and we work on whatever lesson I would have otherwise given whole-group. We also work on targeting their specific needs (I group students according to data to ensure that I can target everyone's needs!). As you can see, I have a computer on the shelf at this station so that we can view videos or any other multimedia, and students can copy Cornell Notes from the screen, etc.
This area is for students to do independent reading. They are allowed to grab a pillow and sit wherever they want as long as they are not talking or disturbing others, and they must be reading the entire time.
This is the front board of my classroom. There is a set of desks facing the front board, but typically, they are not in use. This area can be used for my inclusion teacher to pull a group or for one of our resource teachers to pull a small group if needed. This is also a good place to have kids who cannot handle independent reading on the floor sit.
2. Decide what your stations are going to be and make sure they are consistent. I have three stations - working with me, working on the computer, and independent reading. These never change. The computer website or program changes day-to-day; the lessons I do at my table change, but the stations themselves do not.
3. Decide how you want students to move from station to station. Decide on the traffic pattern. My students move counterclockwise in my classroom to switch stations. The first week of school, we practiced moving around the room for an entire class period. It was time well spent because they could switch stations in under a minute without incident.
4. Teach students how to travel. Put them in groups and have them physically transition from station to station around the room using the traffic pattern that you decided on. Practice this many, many times. It is worth it in the long run. Remind students as they practice what your expectations are for each station (for example, if students are reading independently, they should not be talking; they should be engaged in their book, etc.)
5. Plan plan plan. Running stations means having a lesson prepared every day for your small group but also a plan for your other stations, whatever they might be.
6. Spend a week practicing with mini-lessons before diving head-first into content. This way, when you get to the content, students will already know what to do!
7. Reinforce expectations, but don't spend the entire time yelling across the room because Steve won't stop talking while he's on the computer. Have a solid classroom management plan in place with PBIS to encourage students to follow your expectations. Ensure students are aware of the consequences of failure to comply with your expectations.
8. Let go of the control. At first, this might seem daunting and overwhelming, but stick to it. Push through the growing pains of making this kind of change and forge onward. You and your students will appreciate it.
9. It doesn't matter what your stations are as long as they are engaging, interactive, and sometimes fun. You can change the content of the stations as often as you want; just try to maintain the station's delivery (for example, at my computer station, students use different websites each day for different things, but the station using the computer never changes).
10. Don't give up. It is going to be hard at first, but push through and constantly remind students about expectations. If they come to class acting crazy and not moving correctly around the room or being disruptive at their station - stop class and spend time explicitly practicing expectations. Do not fight your way through every day! It does get better, and the better you get at consistently holding students to your expectations, the better it will be.
If you have questions about how I use stations or implement them in my classroom, leave a comment! If you have any ideas that are working in your room - leave a comment!
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