Learning stations are a great way to teach or review several topics at once! I have used them in both middle school and high school Spanish classes and students always really enjoy them because it’s something new and different for them!
When to use learning stations
I personally think stations work best on a block day – with at least 80 minutes of instruction time. It helps to break up a longer class period and helps maintain student engagement. Students are up and moving around the room which makes the time move more quickly. However, I have also used stations during regular class periods (45 minutes) and just spread the work over two days.
Planning for learning stations
The most important part of setting up stations is the organization and pre-planning.
For all students to be engaged in a station, stick to groups of 4 or less. In a class of 25 students, this means you need 6 stations and students rotate about every 9-10 minutes.
Choose activities that focus on different types of input and output for beginning Spanish students. Also spread out the types of activities evenly around the room to create variety for the students. For example:
Although this picture doesn’t show it, there are 6 stations total and the other two are more academic in nature – reading and writing. So the actual breakdown looks like this:
Notice that I have a game after each academic activity so students stay motivated to move on to the next station.
How to set up stations
For stations to run smoothly, you have to set everything up in a very organized way. Here’s what I do:
- Write out and post directions at each station. Include the task, what to do if they finish early, and how you want them to reset the station before they rotate.
2. Quickly walk around the room and show students what they will do at each station.
3. Assign a team captain for each group. The team captain is responsible for reading the directions aloud to the group at each station. Even if they think they remember the description, they must re-read the directions.
4. Tell students the station at which they will start, and let everyone get to their spots.
4. Use your phone to monitor time. This way you can hold it and walk around to each station to monitor and assist students as needed.
How to monitor stations
Rotate around the room and listen to students working and make sure they are on track. Sometimes you can be one of the stations. For example, if you are using stations as review before an assessment, put yourself at the speaking station and have students complete their speaking assessment then and there. You can score it on the spot, which saves time later, and give them instant feedback.
Other times you can set up a station to review the trickiest topic from that unit and essentially do some re-teaching. Or, you can stick around at the station where you’ve noticed kids are having the most trouble to make sure they understand that task.
Creating groups for stations
Grouping is also essential to helping stations run smoothly. Here are three possibilities:
- Table groups – This is the fastest way to set up by far. My tables are organized by mixed ability level so the stronger students help the challenge the weaker students. You can read more about that here.
- Same-level ability groups – If you know one of the stations will be teacher review, put students in same-level ability groups. This way you can cater to each group and provide enrichment to the highest group. The downside of grouping by ability is that the lowest achieving students don’t necessarily have anyone in the group to help them if they need it and tend to work more slowly than the other groups. However, this also forces them to do all the work and not lean too heavily on their more academic peers.
- Randomly based on behavior – Only use this grouping model if we really need to shake things up. Sometimes you know my students need a break from working with their table mates, and the general ability level of the class is the same. In this case, just make random groups and try to choose students who will balance each other out and work well together.
Sample learning stations for Spanish students
In my unit 1 lesson plans, I use learning station rotations twice. Here are examples:
Objective: End of unit review
6 rotations = 8 minutes each, groups of 4-5
- Smart board: Students click through a series of slides and take turns answering animated questions and writing on the board.
2. Computers to practice articles
3. Question word practice: use the deck of cards to ask each other questions and write your answers on mini white boards.
4. Ser and noun/adjective agreement puzzles
5. Reading station -picture walk: – Print the pictures in color and place them in an area of your room on the wall. Students get a handout with 12 descriptions and have to write the name of the person they see on their sheet.
6. Worksheet practice. Place them in a plastic sheet and let students complete it with dry-erase markers. For some reason, it’s much more fun that way! Provide an answer key inside a folder so they can check their work before they move on.
Objective: AR verb review
- Verbo-mania: Play this game with your group
2. Worksheet practice
3. Computer practice: AR verb game page
4. Three-Tries Game
Collecting work
I almost never collect work when we do stations in class. At any station that requires writing, I always provide an answer key in a manila folder. Students check their own work for immediate feedback and put it in their folder as a resource to study later. Other times, I put the worksheets in page protectors and have students write on them with dry-erase markers. They still check their work against the answer key, but then they erase it. This cuts down on photocopies and is my small way of helping the environment. And let’s be honest, most kids are going to recycle the page or leave it on the floor anyway =).
So there you have it! Stations are such a great way to review at the end of a unit or to just break up a topic into multiple activities! There is no grading involved and students have a lot of fun rotating around the room! Curious about how I would use stations for other topics? Leave a comment below and let’s connect!
[…] know other teachers that use this method for stations. Rather than making each kid his/her/their own copy when you know they will throw it out later, […]