We are wrapping up our How-To for Teachers series this week, and I'm excited to bring you a tutorial on a topic that was a crucial part of my classroom as well as one that I think you'll like to start incorporate no matter what level you teach.

STATIONS

Often times stations, or centers, are underrated and underused the higher up in grade level you go. I think this is a super disservice to teachers because the possibilities are awesome.

First, it's important to explain the set up a bit and how I used stations in my classroom.

Station Set Up

When I first implemented stations in my high school (AP Psychology, juniors and seniors) classroom, I heard moans and groans very quickly about how I was making them move about the room.  After resisting their complaining, I realized that having about 25-30 moving bodies (rather large, adult bodies at that) in my room wasn't a great cost to reward ratio.  Too much time was taken up by the transitions and there really was no point to it...

Welcome back for the second installation of our How-To Series for teachers we're currently in the middle of.  I'm excited you're back, but if you didn't catch part one yet, I encourage you to check out how to make student guided notes.

In today's How-To, we'll focus on a digital resource.  It's one that can be done on paper, with scissors and glue, but assigning it digitally furthers the benefits I sought out after when creating these types of resources.

I can explain.

Practice is a super important part of the learning process, as you know, but it also can take a lot of grading and feedback that I simply didn't have the time to provide.  There had to be a better way than assigning the activity, students completing it, I collect, grade, and provide feedback on, then return.

It was just way too long of a process for what should be quick turn on around for students on knowing if they, well, know the material or not based on how well they did applying the concepts.

This...

Even as a high school teacher, providing guided notes to my students is always something I have done.  I do NOT remember that being a tool I was given as a student, and I never thought I would like or appreciate giving students that type of scaffolding as a teacher, but it has been something I've done since day ONE of teaching.

When I first started, I probably couldn't even tell you why I did - it was probably a control thing.  I wanted to control exactly what they got out of the slides I worked so hard to create.  But as I progressed in my career I realized students appreciated these notes, and not just students who truly needed the accommodation, but almost all students.

Students appreciated the structure of guided notes because,

1. It allowed them to focus on what they were hearing without FOMO.  And it's not the kind of FOMO for Friday night's party you have to miss because you have an early ACT the next morning.  No no, it's more pressure of missing...