How are Action stations meeting the individual needs of your students?

Planning for diverse needs and interests is always challenging. In many cases you are exposing students to new experiences and thinking through careful planning and design. 


These are a few tips to follow to ensure you are meeting the needs of your students. 

• Planning carefully with the students in mind
• Reflecting on PMI at the end of the week on planning
• Math goals for maths and reinforcing learning through inquiry with equipment  taught at math time
• Challenge Board to get shared language happening and peer support, addresses hot spots in spelling and maths
• Reflection time is a powerful place to do this and carry out an expectation
• Focus question at start of week must address learning to learn and scaffold the learning throughout the week.
• Buddies for those who need it or work with a friend for a bit
• Ensuring they know what they want to get better at and they can verbalise it clearly and confidently 

High alert for the children who cannot self manage - student is taken to Action Stations Board asked to hand over their name tag as they cannot make choices for their learning, name tag is put up high on the board. This is for a very short time and student is kept with teacher during targeted teaching groups. They must make a good choice for their learning before going back to stations. 

What are the skills of a classroom facilitator?

Our aim is to develop a community of learners who ...

• Question
• Share
• Reflect
• Talk about goals
• Inspire
• Challenge
• Create next steps
• Develops language of and for learning

The best skills a facilitator can apply in the classroom can be defined in four words 

Observe -  Listen  - Responsiveness  - Question

The first step is to create an environment of curiosity, engagement through providing fun thought provoking interactive stations and learning spaces that are;

• appropriate level - not too hard or too easy
• look engaging and fun - clean, simple, inviting
• child centred - what do they want to know?
• invite curiosity - pose something in a different way
• thought provoking - use conjectures
• less is more - children must know what to do when they get there

Teach the students to be a learner by questioning;

• Why is it important to try something new?
• When am I proud of my learning?
• When have I finished my work?
• How can someone help my learning?
• Where do I get new ideas?
• How can I make my learning even better?
• What do you wonder about?
• How do I learn something new?
• How do I choose a station?

Can you match these to key competencies?

Listen

• share learning, achievements, success, problems, new ideas

• inspire more learning
• develop curiosity in a new learning
• motivate a want for success

• develop language of learning 
• identify learning needs

Capture their language anyway you can

• ipad videos
• camera provided for tv interviews -("What are you learning?")
• reflection booth
• modelling books
• educreations app
• think boards
• think pads
• discourse cards
• whiteboards
• investigating books
• setting success criteria for key competency question each week
• class list of anecdotal notes when they share and reflect
• wonderings wall
• peer assessment

Create a purpose for sharing - What you say will help others. Create a culture that sharing is learning.

Be responsive to what you observe through questioning

Creating expected standards is vital to turn play into learning. Why is this great learning?

Considering Feedback - Why did you choose this station?

Identifying Next Steps - What can you do on your own now?

Developing Thinking - What was the tricky part?

Creating a Community of Learners - How can I learn from someone else?

When considering learner dispositions what would you do to inspire these in your classroom?

Independence

self direct, self manage, and organise themselves for learning

Creativity

curiosity, innovative and use their imagination

Resilience

to bounce back after frustration, stress, challenges and to problem solve creatively

Self Motivate

to engage fully in their learning, be responsible for their next steps and get stuck in.

Construction - Learning???

 

sourced from pinterest

Mmmmmmm! What could you possibly learn with this??? 

 form 

structure

strength in design

shapes

social communities

collaborative design 

oral language

story writing

Mmmmmm!

Demonstrating the thinking!

 Kids demonstrating their thinking supports so much learning

Pride in their presentation of their thinking
clarifies their thinking
demonstrates different models for solving a problem
Inspires others
Opens doors for peer tutoring within the class

The best way I have found this to work is using edu-creations app on the ipad and making a movie using their voice as well as their drawings to show their thinking. Very powerful for parents to see steps to achieve the end result. Post it on your blog creating a wider audience. Inspires students to help other students across the world in learning math.

Stinky Feet Game

I have so many ideas about how I could use this game, and not only for students but also adults and team building. There's nothing quite like a bit of fun competition to get the brain working. Really nice way to end the game with positive and negative point system.

Constructions

These children have used different things to create stable buildings and tall structures. The language about strength, height, team work and problem solving is inspiring.

I would also like to try using cards, straws, to challenge their thinking further. If you have any ideas please share them with a comment below.

Blocks of Wood

Providing the most basic blocks of wood can provide hours of learning fun. These boys worked together for days to figure out a way to make the tallest tower. I was amazed at the way they worked out how to get them to stack well. They surprised themselves how high they could get it to go.
They tried many different ways to make the strongest tower. Very interesting talking to them about their learning.

Me

This station created many discussions about team work, problems solving as well as size and comparsons. When you rely on someone to help you it really motivates a child to ask for help and work woth someone else to achieve a goal. They found out quite quickly that if you help one person they will help you to achieve your goal. The aim of this station was to draw around your body cut it out and decorate it so it looks like them. We displayed them on the wall to compare sizes and challenges to complete the task. Awesome amount of learning with this station.

Hut Construction

Providing the bare necessities to build a hut creates opportunities for team work, negotiation and problem solving skills and creative thinking. This team of builders only had a few cardborad rolls and a sheet to make a hut to play in. It inspired both girls and boys to work together. They even added extras like a camp fire for cooking and a telescope out of a gap in the wall.