EDU221Stations


 * Pros/Pointers to making it a positive experience || Cons/Things to avoid ||
 * * small group work means more students are actively participating in an activity--be concerned with group size--are the groups too big so that you'll end up with one person doing the typing and nobody else participating? are the groups too small that you end up with too many groups?; can have some stations doing same thing, so for example students start at a letter station (A, B, or C) and switch to a number station (1, 2, or 3)...you end up with 6 groups doing 2 stations each
 * number of people participating in a discussion is greatly increased in small groups...you can have multiple discussions going on simultaneously; plus people are more likely to pay attention in small group discussions because they don't have to wait so long to have a turn for input || * The silence can sometimes drive people crazy but teachers should not talk while students are working. You're either distracting them from getting the work done or they're continue to focus on the work and aren't hearing what you say. Either way, it's ineffective.
 * If there's an emergency piece of information, make everyone "pause" and then give the information and then "resume"
 * Go to each group and quietly give them the information where you can quickly establish eye contact and give the information
 * If it can wait, keep a list on the board of things you think of during the stations that you want to point out and when it's all done or at the next transition between stations, make the announcement to everyone
 * Noise level can be distracting; especially with videos--only have one station with a video or put two videos far apart but don't put two videos next to each other. If all stations are going to watch the same video and then do a group activity, watch the video as a class and then do the group activity.
 * Noise level can be distracting, especially for students that have actual learning differences in this area (it's a known medical issue)
 * don't give handouts and then expect people to listen to you give directions; instead, wait to give handouts or have handouts waiting at stations. exception: if you are going over the information on the handout or expect them to fill it out as you go through it together (but know that once you give the handout, you've given some people an automatic distraction)--try to have self-explanatory handouts; the beauty of groups is that someone (at least one) hopefully will be paying attention during your talk or figure out the handout and help the others ||