Grantmo

I was being coached a few years back by another professional in the field and when they stepped into my eighth grade classroom one day, they ended up giving me advice that I have used since then. The kids were trying their best to run all over me and I was in a new job, in a new school district after having spent the previous year out of the classroom coaching teachers and working for the school district. It was 2017, and with the new election, the group of students that was comprised of about 98% Latinx students were experiencing bullying and fear and were acting out. It was a Language Arts and Social Studies block class taught in Spanish. Most of the teachers who taught them the year before had left the school and the students told me that it was because of them, that they were to blame for the teachers leaving.

My mentor showed up well dressed in a wool blazer, ready to dish out all of the wisdom to make my instruction impactful. Halfway through the lesson I could see their face reddening and them sweating because the kids were making it hard for me to get through instructions. The students had taken to throwing things across the classroom at each other every time I turned my back (mostly books from my extensive classroom library). I had tried all of the things in my tool belt. We were using restorative circles and I was scaffolding instruction for them. I was working one on one with them to build trust and relationships but it was taking time. I knew it was bad and I was far enough in my career that it was frankly embarrassing to be observed like this.

I braced myself for the post observation feedback, knowing that it wasn’t a great lesson. They said to me that it seems like this group of students isn’t doing well with receiving direct instruction from me, so why don’t I put them into groups and have them work through a series of stations instead. I can work with them in small groups and one on one without having to try to get through a whole class lesson. I implemented all of their suggestions and for the next few weeks students worked with groups to learn what I had been trying to teach to the whole class all at once. I was able to meet more students where they were at and give extra help to others.

I have worked with different iterations of the same concept of putting students into groups since then and found that when I plan ahead, it can work really well. With the holiday quickly approaching, I decided last week that it was time to put students into learning centers. They have learned enough about classroom routines and activities as well as my expectations that I can trust them to work in differentiated centers and as the break approaches, students will be less able to focus on whole class instruction. Besides, I am tired of hearing my voice in class, so they must be tired of it too!

I have the following centers at work and the first day in them went well.

• Writing – Students did the planner together with me and this is the drafting table where they are putting it into a paragraph form.
• Reading and summarizing – This a more scaffolded version of what we have been working on as a whole class for students who are still struggling to meet the target.
• Newsela reading and filling out the quiz – This is for my higher level readers who can read more text independently and answer the questions on the quiz. These are difficult but a good level for more challenged students.
• Vocabulary work – students are working in their notebooks on filling out a graphic organizer with definitions and sample sentences for tier 2 vocabulary words. We have practiced this routine already in class so they can refer back to their previous work to complete this.
• Reading online with Epic and Sora – This is for students who I have noticed aren’t able to choose good fit books in class and don’t seem to be inspired or engaging in reading the books they chose. They are able to spend more times choosing books online to read.
• “Playing” with voice to text – This is a strategic group of students who either need extra practice using technology (such as recent arriver EL students), and students whose IEP’s and 504’s specify this accommodation. As students in other centers complete their work, this will also be an option for them.

Considerations

To set up centers, there is a little bit of groundwork that needs to be done ahead of time. You have to decide what each center is going to be and what the learning targets are in each one. What do you expect students to complete in how much time?

With sixth graders, I chose to have students complete one center a day so that they can get into the routine of settling in, gathering materials and reading instructions. If they are able to focus and get it done, I might try to have them switch but not yet.

The hardest part of centers is figuring out which ones I need all of the students to hit eventually, such as the writing center and the word work center. I might switch it up by the second week and have two of the centers both be the writing one as well as the word work one, so that everyone gets through them. The voice to text one and the Epic reading one are not centers that I think all students need to hit. So they may be the ones that eventually replaced by the other two.

I might also add in a more “fun” center the last half of the week before break such as a word game center or a coloring or collaging center. This would need to be for students who have show progress in the other centers.

Lastly, I have to decide what I am going to collect and score and what the accountability for their work will look like. I have punch cards that students turn in once full for prizes. For each center they complete they get a star on their card. The word work and the writing will be handed in when we are finished.

The benefits

I find that the benefits outweigh the work that is required up front to set up centers. Students get support in their groups from their classmates and from me. They are able to work more independently and with a little more leeway on how they pace themselves. There is an element of choice and responsibility when students have a specific center to complete in a specified period of time. It works great for the regular Language Arts class or the DL classroom.