If you don’t know what stations are, stations are a way to run a class in which there are a variety of activities for students to complete. There is not one right way to do stations and they can be used for many different learning activities. You can even use stations for actual labs. Here are a few ideas on using stations:
- Mini lab activities to investigate a new idea; such as light, mixtures, or magnetism
- Students are progressing through a series of steps to get to a final product; such as when you are writing a lab report or just starting writing in science
- Multiple types of learning activities to balance input and output
- Reviewing learned material
There are many benefits to stations, when used effectively. One of the biggest benefits for my students has been that large concepts are easily chunked into smaller ideas that students can go through at their own pace. I do occasionally have stations that everyone moves through at the same pace, but even this can work fine, if you give students a chance to go back to what they didn’t finish before. You can also incorporate options for multiple intelligences, without feeling like you made 25 unique lesson plans. Which also leads into how easy it is to differentiate learning for your class. Put your easiest stations at the beginning and the advanced at the end for extended learning opportunities. As the teacher, you can have communicate with different students about the stations they need to complete. You might have a few that only need to go to a certain station, while others can go further. For more advanced students, they might even be able to skip the early stations to get more in depth in the extension activities. Setting up stations also allows you to easily incorporate technology into the learning, even if your access to technology is somewhat limited.
There are two types of stations; physical or digital. Physical stations are set up around the classroom and students move from station to station. All of the instructions and needed materials are at the stations. The benefits to physical stations: it gets students up and moving and everything is set up at a single location, so there is less wandering. However, this can be tough when you have lots of students out because they will have to come in to make them up. Physical stations can also be hard if you don’t have much space and if the stations are self-paced, some may get a little congested. Digital stations are set up so that the instructions and most of the materials needed are digital. Digital stations can be great for smaller spaces and when students are out. Also, this doesn’t have to mean everything is digital; students can still complete work on paper. However, you have to have a place for students to find the needed papers or other materials. Personally, I often rely on a mix of digital and physical stations. In fact, I’ve been using OneNote for digital notebooking and we are doing Human Body Stations. All of the instructions have been on OneNote, along with some of the work. There are a couple of physical stations to complete and they get me to sign off after I check their work. It has been interesting and I’ve learned some things I would do better with next time. But, I haven’t had to spend much time at the copier, so I’m calling it a win!
When you are ready to start designing your stations, this is what I do:
- Start with your standard, target, or goal in mind.
- Break it down to determine what students need to get out of these stations. Determine your Boulders (major foundational standards), Rocks (important standards), and Butterflies (standards that are less important and won’t affect students if they don’t get these). Not all stations have to have butterflies, I’ve done labs where students are expected to go through every station.
- Create purposeful tasks to develop content knowledge or skills.
- Try to design with multiple intelligences in mind
- Don’t reinvent the wheel, if you have a card sort that is good, use that as a station, make your vocabulary activities stations.
- Don’t forget to decide if you will have a teacher-led small group!
- Do NOT have students do something that requires examples from you or detailed instructions. If your station is too complex, you will spend all your time helping on that one station. Trust me, don’t make this mistake.
- Have a variety of activities to balance student input and output. I really try to go back and forth when I make my stations; Station 1-input, Station 2-output, Station 3-input…
- If you are setting up stations for mini-investigations, they may not necessarily be input/output stations. More like, do this and write your observations stations. Which is really both input and output at the same time.
- Start small. This will help you set your expectations with your class and help your class understand how this works.
To make and set up your stations, there are a few thing to keep in mind. First, make sure your instructions are clear and easy to follow. That doesn’t mean it has to be short, just easy to follow. One of my biggest struggles every year (and even right now in March) is getting students to read the directions. I don’t answer questions until they have read the directions. Be sure to list and supplies they will need and have them clearly marked. If you have setting up physical stations, be sure your stations are clearly marked as well. Put your most important stations first! The very last stations should be “butterfly” type stations that are extensions on the learning and good to keep your early finishers engaged, but it won’t hurt any students that don’t make it that far.
One last consideration is student grouping. I don’t give my students options on who they work with when we first start stations. Student choice stations are allowed later in the year after I’ve established my expectations and I’ve decided my students can handle that level of responsibility. Assigning groups is an extra step, but I think it is worth it. You will avoid a lot of wasted time and teacher frustration because students aren’t working. There are plenty of ideas on how to set up groups and what works best often depends on what type of stations you have and your class. You want to make sure you avoid groups that have large gaps in ability or you will end up with a couple students working and others wasting time. This obviously isn’t helpful for anyone involved. Carefully setting up your groups also allows you to differentiate which stations are required and which are not.
When it is time to run the stations, make sure you have made your expectations for collaboration (not copying) clear and you are visible to the students. They need to know where to find you when they need help. Being visible also helps keep students on task. If students aren’t working, here are some things to consider: have you clearly communicated your expectations, are some of the stations too hard or too confusing, is the work busy work and not engaging, were the students left to make too many decisions about who to work with and where to start on their own?
Hopefully this helps you get started. If you have any questions or ideas to share, leave a comment below.
