As a classroom teacher for almost 10 years, I remember January and February being a time when I was inspired to revisit different aspects of my classroom. During the break, I would reflect on what needed fine tuning, how to implement shifts to better support student needs, and explored new ways to engage students in their own learning. Sometimes this meant redesigning my space or making changes to my curriculum, but one thing that was certain was that it always involved a lot of Googling. Instead of sending you to the vast internet, at The Learning Accelerator we developed a new section of our site – our Problems of Practice series – focused on repackaging resources in ways to help you adjust your practice and support your students in new ways. Hopefully this will help you scratch your New Year’s itch while exploring tangible, practice-based strategies.
- The first Problem of Practice is focused on “Setting Up Stations” and explores various approaches to space, culture, and routine when implementing a station rotation model. It also maps out key resources to help you bring a basic station rotation to life in a traditional structure by utilizing targeted strategies, tools, and research.
- The second Problem of Practice, “Deeper Differentiation and Personalization within a Station Rotation Model,” takes this a step further by raising the guardrails to allow for more flexible movement, grouping, and individualization based on student needs. It also showcases various ways of approaching data to understand and serve students more strategically and holistically.
In addition to these two Problems of Practice, we will be launching four more over the next few months. These will allow us to continue the conversation on stations and dive into concrete ways to support diverse learners more strategically in blended and personalized learning spaces. If you have other challenges or Problems of Practice you or your district are facing and would like us to address, feel free to reach out to juliana.finegan@learningaccerator.org.
