Keeping students engaged for an entire class can be a challenge, especially with block scheduling. One way I like to keep students actively engaged for 87 minutes is with stations. Depending on your class size and length of class period, you may need 3-6 stations per class.
Here are my suggestions for implementing stations:
- Make sure each station will take the same amount of time. You don’t want students to have a lot of downtime at one station and then be so overwhelmed at another, they can’t even finish the task.
- Have a culminating ticket out the door (two options)
- Prior to starting the stations, give every student a paper with either blank boxes for each station or a specific question for that station. As students rotate through each station, they will respond to the question or you could follow a more generic format and have students write their favorite part of that station or what they learned. Discuss and then collect this reflection.
- Take the last five minutes of class to have students reflect on which station was their favorite and their least favorite. Discuss and then collect this reflection
- Try to incorporate all 3 modes of communication. Each station should focus on one mode, since you won’t have much time at each station. There are some ideas below for each mode.
Ideas for Interpretive
- Read a short story, answer questions (really short story!)
- Look at a news article, answer main idea questions
- Watch a short video/listen to audio; answer questions (have an individual chromebook set up)
Ideas for Interpersonal
- Pull questions out of a hat and talk with group members
- Board games with questions on each space
- Provide students with images, they can generate questions and comments
Ideas for Presentational
- Watch Mr. Bean videos (my students’ favorite!) and write what he does
- Give students a few pictures. They will put them in order and then write a story about their images
- Use Tell Tale cards (give them 3) and create a story with the images they received
