Doctor Clare

In the interest of running effective classroom lessons, and making the most of classroom management, using stations can be a great way to meet the needs of students. With station teaching, students are dividing into groups within the classroom, and the class time is divided so that each group will have time to rotate to each of a number of different stations set up across the classroom. In general, one has students working closely with the teacher, one might have students working with an aide, and at least one station has students working independently, either with material they can do on their own or interacting with a computer program. 

Through the regular use of station teaching in the classroom, teachers can promote a number of important behaviors, as well as more accurately and effectively support students with a variety of needs. Because students are assigned to small groups for station teaching, teachers can enhance the learning experience by creating either homogenous or heterogenous groups as needed, to allow students to practice concepts tailored to their similar needs or support each other through peer modeling or peer tutoring, respectively. Additionally, because groups must work together effectively, station teaching is an excellent method to foster and refine social skills as well as language skills, as students negotiate speaking together to complete activities and solve problems. Station teaching is also great for promoting engagement, as students are right in front of each other to be seen and heard, and paid attention to by their peers. Finally, station teaching allows the teacher to give more individualized attention to students, as small groups rotate through working with them. Within the small group setting, the teacher is more likely to be able to identify student areas of need, adapt responsively to demonstrated student challenges, and provide re-teaching, prompts, encouragement and specific praise as needed to help students achieve their learning goals.

With all of that going for it, station teaching is an appealing structure for a variety of lessons and situations, however it is most appropriate under certain circumstances and within specific settings. Station teaching is appropriate when the content or over-arching theme has already been taught to the whole class. It is not appropriate for whole-group explanations or direct instruction, but it lends itself very well to practice, enrichment and expansion. While the group with the teacher may be able to learn some new content, it is not expected that students practicing on their own or with an aide will do so. The teacher may wish to use their rotation station to teach a new aspect or application of content that is previously taught, but they must also take care that it is not a requirement for success at the other stations, as different groups will complete the rotations in a different order from each other. 

Station teaching can also be an idea solution to a block schedule. With time periods of 60-90 minutes, block classes can seem to stretch on endlessly. To effectively use this time, breaking into several smaller blocks can increase student engagement, decrease unstructured time, and engage different kinds of learners through the different activities that you do.

To prepare for station teaching, the first step is to determine the number and type of stations there will be. Suggestions for teacher-led stations include:

• Teaching alternative methods or strategies related to a pre-taught concept
• Review of previous content, with teacher supervision to mastery
• The type of hands-on work, such a s a science experiment, that requires close teacher support.

Suggestions for small group or paraprofessional support stations include:

• Additional practice of a pre-taught concept
• Application of a pre-taught concept—practicing using it in different contexts, with different data, or just extra independent practice
• A group activity, such a text discussion, filling out a shared graphic organizer, or creating a poster based on pre-taught content

Suggestions for independent stations include:

• Quiet, independent work such as filling out graphic organizers, maps, or creating illustrations
• Using computers to complete online modules of related content

With everyone hard at work in their groups in stations, it is the teacher’s responsibility to keep the movement flowing with appropriate support and smooth transitions. Though they have a group of their own to monitor, the teacher must keep an eye on the time to make sure that each group will have the time to rotate through each station. It is important to make the time known and available to students. Using some sort of countdown or visual timer, including both digital and analog varieties, can be a great way and are easy to check by students throughout the course of the activities. Alternately, writing the end time of the current station rotation in a highly visible place, such as the board at the front of the room, can serve this same function. As groups are working, it may be appropriate to play music softly in the background. It is generally recommend that this music be unobtrusive, such as instrumentals, classical other songs without lyrics. Thus, the transition of the music can also serve as a transition of when the stations must be rotated. 

Eventually, the time will come to conclude the lesson. If stations are well planned and appropriately timed, each group will have gotten to experience, practice and benefit from each station. It is recommended to bring the class together in one group for the conclusion of the lesson. This may be a good time for students to share what they learned at each station, to compare notes, and to share feedback. It may be that different groups came to different conclusions in their time working independently, or they may have products such as maps, posters, illustrations, graphic organizers, etc. to share with the class. A little bit of time given to this sharing will bring the day’s learning to a clear and coherent end. 

Throughout the activity of station teaching, several common situations may arise and present challenges. Fortunately, there are solutions to each. One common problem is the need to support multiple groups at the same time. Though it is possible to plan successful independent work activities, sometimes students need additional help and guidance to get started. Alternately, there may be elements about the group interactions that need addressing, such as when students don’t get along, are reluctant to start, are having such a good time that they are laughing and playing instead of engaging with the work, or are in conflict with one another. In these situations, it is the teacher’s responsibility to assist the off-track group in getting back on track. The teacher should help the group that they are with get to a good practice point—have students repeat a passage they are reading, practice with a partner in the group, do a problem independently, or other work for a moment without the teacher’s intervention. This will allow the teacher to go and intervene with the off task group, assess the situation, determine the intervention, and redirect, re-teach, or address the behavior of the group as needed.

It is possible, as well, that a classroom wide interruption may occur. Phone calls, visitors, fire alarms and other distractions happen throughout the day. The best plan is one that is made ahead of time, and so students should be taught in advance of the lesson what the expectations are when such interruptions occur. Still, one cannot always anticipate the unexpected, and so if this does occur, this can be a great time to regroup. Re-introduce the concept of station teaching, remind students of the activities and expectations at each station, once students have returned to the classroom, resettled, or redirected their attention back to the tasks at hand. 

Once basic station teaching has been mastered and implemented in the classroom, there are additional instructional techniques which lend themselves nicely to being combined with the station teaching methods. One such technique is problem-based learning, which came from the world of medicine (Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980) before transition to wider use in education (Williams & Hmelo, 1998). In these lessons, students are not given direct instruction such as formulas or operational steps, but instead are given a challenge problem designed to get students thinking about the content. Students must use their powers of deduction and rely upon the rest of their team to solve the problem they are give. In this way, students are both learning and applying the content at the same time, which makes for a more meaningful and memorable learning experience. Because this type of instruction is meant to happen in a student-centered manner, without the direct explication or instruction of the teacher, it can be a great use for an independent station in station teaching.

Additionally, Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies, known as PALS, can also be a great activity for station teaching (Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes & Simmons, 1997). Based on the concept of peer tutoring, in PALS lessons, students are intentionally paired with readers of differing levels and each takes on specific roles when engaging in a curricular activity, often a reading assignment although PALS has been studied with other types of lessons. In Partner Reading with Retell, the students take turns reading to one another, with the stronger reader going first. Next is Paragraph Summary, where the students take turn reading paragraphs aloud to one another and completing a summary of each. Finally, students complete a Prediction Relay, predicting what will happen next in the text and then reading on to confirm. Due to the student-centered and student supported method of instruction, this method is very well aligned with station teaching. 

Thus it can be expected that station teaching will be a useful strategy in any classroom, from elementary to high school. It enables students to both work independently and get more support from the classroom teacher in a small group setting. It can be tailored to most curricula and can fit in to the school day at times when students should be practicing and expanding on material that they have been taught, as well as being appropriate for enriching and challenging activities such as problem-based learning and PALS. With more diversity and variety of activities to engage students, such as provided by station teaching, student can get more out of the classroom learning experience.

References

Barrows, H. S., & Tamblyn, R. M. (1980). Problem-based learning: An approach to medical education (Vol. 1). Springer Publishing Company.

Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Mathes, P. G., & Simmons, D. C. (1997). Peer-assisted learning strategies: Making classrooms more responsive to diversity. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 174-206.

Hmelo-Silver, C. E., & Eberbach, C. (2012). Learning theories and problem-based learning. In Problem-based learning in clinical education (pp. 3-17). Springer, Dordrecht.