Science Stations a Work in Progress

I attended a workshop on Personalized Learning at FETC, and although I am not prepared to make that jump I think that  blended learning is more my speed.  I am working hard to incorporate the 4 C's in to my classroom (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity).  As part of this I have really embraced the idea of teaching with centers rather than whole group instruction.  This changes my role from the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side".  I'm okay with this.  Students need to be responsible for their own learning.

I am not fully prepared to give up on whole group entirely.  I think students need that whole group experience to hear a common message.  To set the stage for the learning I like to use interactive presentations such as Pear Deck.  This allows for me to have some formative assessment, and make decisions.

This is the run down of day one of my science stations for Force and Motion.  It was a little rocky, and I was able to tweak it for later classes, so it was able to get smoothed out.

Pear Deck Lesson

Organize

I created a chart so students knew how they were supposed to move through their stations. This is a Google Doc so I was able to type student names in once they were assigned to groups.  I use the Team Shake app on my iPad.  It has student data inputted an enables me to shake up teams easily.  In the background I am able to add student ability, group students, and tell what type of groups I want to create.  I used the Chromecast to display the chart in the back of the room, allowing students to see how they were supposed to progress.  For most classes it was also displayed on the front board.  As a Google doc it was also in-bedded in a Pear Deck slide so students could access it through there.

This next bit is a lesson learned.  When I presented my first class with the chart of what they'd be doing, I didn't establish expectations as adequately as I should have.  I talked about what I wanted my students to do, but nothing was written that they could refer to.  So I was able to add this to my deck to introduce the activities for other classes. For those classes this was left projected as they were working through their stations.

 These expectations and reminders were things that didn't go particularly well in my other classes.  Knowing where stations are and putting in writing what they are supposed to do.  I still had questions, but at least had a place to point them to, to remind them.


So Many Resources

I love Discovery Education.  There are so many great and wonderful resources.  Boards are a great way to pull resources into one place.  This could be a stand alone station, but I wanted to give students other opportunities that did not involve technology.  I wasn't sure how long the other stations would take students, I went a bit overboard with what I put on my board.

I know my students and even though I can walk them through how to get to where I need them to be not everyone is going to remember. To help with this I created a task sheet to help them organize their Discovery Education center. The top shows the places students need to click to get to the right spot. I wish I was able to provide a direct link to get them where I want them to be inside Discovery Education.

Despite the directions on the board itself and reminders on the page. Some students still were unsure of what to do.

Explore It!

This is the station where I wanted to spend my time. In a perfect world I would have, but I was more running around checking to make sure everyone else was doing what they were supposed to. This station had issues. The first big issue is THEY DIDN'T READ THE DIRECTIONS. AHH!!!! This was very similar to an experiment that we started the day before. Instead of reading the directions they jumped right in thinking that they knew what they were doing. They did not. This allowed for lots of lessons in the nature of science standards. The words invalid were used and discussed. The set up was fixed and they did the experiment correctly.

Once every group completes this station the data will be pulled together. We'll have the conversation about validity of results again, and discuss the issues that were had.

Research It!

Students went to an outside interaction to work with forces. This truly was an exploration. There were just a few must does to demonstrate balanced and unbalanced forces. Once students completed that they were free to play around for about 5 minutes.

Hiccups with this station were students not able to type in the URL on the station card, which I had created a work around with putting a direct link off my class webpage. Additionally adding a timer to the station might be beneficial so students don't linger.

Watch It!

Students were to watch a short video about balanced and unbalanced forces. This part they did. It was the conversation and questions afterward that needed some work.

Illustrate It!

Students drew images of balanced and unbalanced forces. I tried to make it so by the time students got to this station, they had already been exposed to these terms and weren't flying blind.

Read It!

Students had a passage about balanced and unbalanced forces and some questions that went with it. Pretty straight forward, right? One group didn't realize they were supposed to read something until they got to the last question.

Organize It!

This was a sort. Students sorted different scenarios into balanced and unbalanced forces. The directions on this station recommend that students complete two other stations first. It was very tricky. In fact one of my teams had it as their second station and they were unable to complete the task. They were allowed to skip over it (temporarily) until they got enough information to complete it successfully.

In Conclusion
This was a step in the direction of where I want to go. It was by no means perfect, but I am not giving up on the idea. With more practice, better guidance, and patience I think it will be extremely beneficial to my overall goal of making my students actively engaged learners.