Amani Cooks, Stephanie Flores-Koulish, Ph.D.

Station Teaching: Meeting the Needs of All Students

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Tracking students and grouping them into the homogenous classrooms is becoming less common. Instead, there is a rise of inclusion in general education classrooms. Not only are classrooms including a wide range of learners, including English Language Learners (ELL), special education, and accelerated students; but there are not classes that prepare incoming teachers to handle teaching the wide range of learners. Meeting the needs of such a wide range of learners is can also be new territory for older teachers who are accustomed to teaching homogenous classes or use to teaching lesson with whole group components. It is vital for educators to continue to grow professionally to ensure that all efforts are made to meet the needs of all our students. We can not continue to be complacent because it is the way we learned how to teach. The classroom structure is changing more and more each day, and educators need to be responsive. Station Rotation teaching is a form of blended learning that allows educators to effectively and efficiently differentiate instruction for a wide range of learners.  

A research-based professional development series was created and executed in an elementary school serving grades pre-k to fifth grade. A total of five teachers attended both one-hour sessions. The initial session took place in a small group and served as an introduction to the Station Rotation Teaching Model. The second session happened individually. During the individual session, teachers were asked to bring a unit plan from English Language Arts curriculum or math curriculum. We then looked at the standards and students’ needs in order to plan out station activities and lessons. After teachers participated in both session and follow-up survey was sent out. This survey asked participants the likelihood of them implementing the Station Rotation Teaching Model for a unit, the effectiveness of the professional development sessions,  and willingness to help spread the model to their teaching team.