Week 5 - You guessed it! More Stations!!

Our station rotations complete with transition music.

QR code hunt with ipods

Using versatiles with integer word problems. 

Whew! It was a fun filled week that went by quickly. The 7th graders spent a few days rotating through six review stations. Again, I can’t express how nice it is to be able to easily set up for stations with our new furniture.  Chairs and tables are on wheels are such a time saver! In previous years, we would spend about 30-45 minutes after school setting up stations, moving heavy furniture, hanging signs, etc. This year stations take us about 5 minutes to set up.Through stations we were able to see new students emerging as leaders. It is always interesting to watch the different dynamics within the groups. There’s always a few students that break out of their shells and surprise us! We’ve done stations many times in the past but this was our first time doing them with 7th graders in quite a while (we taught 8th grade last year). So, we both realized the importance of assigning roles to the individual group members… something that is typically not an issue for us in 8th grade.

Integer models!

8th grade spent the week evaluating expressions. We utilized a blended learning approach for notes and instruction. We are a 1:1 classroom, students were able to use the chromebooks and headphones to watch a video and take notes. This approach provides individual assistance to students and allows them to learn at their own pace. They can pause, rewind, or even fast forward the video as needed. After the video we have the students complete a google form which provides us with immediate feedback on how well the students are grasping the material. If we see that a student is struggling with the content (through the google form) then we pull them in for on-one-on remediation right then. The instruction was followed up with a differentiated leaf activity tailored to the student's ability.