WHITE SNAKE, road markers & classroom procedures

Yeah... this time White Snake is teaching us something about the classroom, folks.  Routines and procedures help any and every lesson run more smoothly.  The more complex the task or pedagogical approach (like blended learning) the more you'll need to establish R&P.

But first, as my kids like to blurt out when they're excited to share some tidbit of information unrelated to anything I'm trying to talk to them about...

It's time for a... 

Did you know that we haven't always had stripes in the middle of our highways and roads?!  In 1911, the first striping of a road was done in Michigan.  A standardized approach placing stripes on roadways wasn't really agree upon by the states until the mid 1970's!  What the what?!  Yep... Before the 1970s, some states had stripes and other's didn't.  Some stripes were wide and some were narrow... Some stripes were yellow and reflective and other stripes were white and non-reflective.  Isn't that crazy?!  I mean... just from an observational perspective... it's kind of weird to think about.

What if you were driving from Michigan to Texas and, as you entered each state, there were missing lines or the lines were different colors or different shapes?  It would be weird.

Interestingly enough , studies have been done to look into how stripes affect driver's safety... and, guess what, butter cup?  Roads with stripes have few wrecks and people tend to stay closer to the speed limit than roads with no stripes. 

Turns out that the hashed lines help drivers gauge how fast they're going.  And the stripes themselves keep drivers on the right side of the road.  

If you don't Belize me (I'm already things about summer vacation, ugh)... then check out these two websites (I did the research for you, so you don't have to...). The first one is an article on the history of road markings and the second is a pretty dry research site on the topic. 

AND

So, what this really boring research does is address White Snake's (and your student's) need for direction.

Without routines and procedures, your assignments and activities may be perfect, in and of themselves.  There may be directions written on the paper or on the board, but what underlying set of elements important to the task have not been addressed?  Can the kids talk to each other? When? To what extent? Can they work on the floor? If they need a brain break, do they wait for you to tell them or can they take one on their own?  What is proper for peer to peer interaction? What is proper for peer to teacher interaction? Are these expectations posted so everyone can see them?  Have they been reviewed and, more importantly, consistently supported by the teacher AND the students?

Read the following lyrics, but from a student's perspective as they are lost in a lesson and looking for those routines and procedures in your classroom: 

Tho' I keep searching for an answer

I never seem to find what I'm looking for

Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on

'Cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams

Here I go again on my own

Goin' down the only road I've ever known

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone

An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time

Man...the kid singing those lines above is lost and just needs something small to get back on track. I feel for them :)

So...

What do road stripes have to do with White Snake and routines and procedures?

Small lines on the road help save lives.  For the most part, they don't have to be enforced.  Drivers can gauge their own speeds and stay on the right side of the lines... as long as someone paints the lines and tell them what they mean.

It's the same thing in your classroom.  You don't have to create a giant encyclopedia of routines and procedures to get kids to follow them.  YOU don't have to be the only one to enforce them if you empower students to keep each other in check.  

How many times have you put together what you thought was an incredible lesson only to watch it fall apart in an implosion of confusion or a need for you to over-explain the expectations?  Maybe the lesson really WAS awesome, but the classroom routines and procedures were not.

David Coverdale pleads "Tho' I keep searching for an answer, I never seem to find what I'm looking for."  If he only had  "Ask 3 before me".

Poor, confused David Coverdale

Routines and procedures: not just an elementary need.

Tiny, supported shifts in expectations can do wonders.  This tends to happen more in elementary classrooms.  What we secondary level teachers tend to assume is that our students come to us as civilized  human beings fully equip for our lessons.  Fill in this blank space a story from your class. 

 Yes, we need routines and procedures in secondary as well. 

Resources

What are some resources, Charles?  Glad you asked! 

Though this list isn't exhaustive you will certainly find some food for thought here.   Is there currently an issue in your classroom you can’t solve? Rethink the issue through the routines and procedures lens. 

Mull over R&P for everything from how students interact to how do they turn in assignments to what to do when they have some free time to...

Checklist for R&P

30 routines and procedures to think about (Elementary) 

40 (yes, 40... sorry) things to consider regarding R&P

12 Classroom R&P for secondary ELA

Highschool R&P for several items including substitute teachers 

Helpful tools for R&P: 

• timers
• R and P charts
• colored coded folders for tasks 
• in and out boxes for work
• key words to signal transitions 
• music to signal transition
• Listen to 1980s music to revisit our glory days (this one is mainly for me)

Is Blended Learning Really for Everyone?

I’ve been part of this blended learning world for quite a while now, and I’ve trained a lot of educators on blended learning.  Sometimes teachers have great success with blended learning and it all goes great.  Other times teachers come back and tell me things like, blended learning just isn’t for my kids.  That made me start to wonder.  Is that really true?  Are there certain kids who blended learning is good for and others who it is not good for?  Well, let’s dissect this a little bit and think about it.  The purpose of blended learning is to provide a personalized learning experience for all students by using data to guide learning and leveraging technology to help facilitate this personalized learning experience.  If I use that definition, is there any student you can think of that blended learning wouldn’t benefit?  I can’t think of any.  So, if blended learning really is good for all learners, then why are some having success while others are not?

Procedures and routines. We all know these are important and we work really hard on them at the beginning of the school year.  Once our kids get into the swing of things, it’s pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of the year.  One thing that we often don’t realize is that every time we do something new with our students, this becomes a new procedure for them to learn.  Let me give you an example from my first day of teaching.  I had been a student in public school for 12 years, so I knew what school was like.  I had student taught, so I knew how to be a teacher.  You could say that I learned all the routines and procedures of being a teacher.  On my first day of teaching I got started with my adorable little 3^rd graders doing what I had been taught to do on the first day – go over routines and procedures.  About 15 minutes into class, one cute young lady raised her hand.  When I called on her she said, “Aren’t you going to take us to breakfast, Mrs. Shaw?”  I just stood there looking at her not even knowing what to say.  I mean, was I supposed to take them to breakfast?  Should I take all of them?  I finally said, “Am I supposed to?”  All the students nodded their heads – probably because they were all starving.  So, I lined my students up and trotted them over to the cafeteria.  The other teachers were all in the cafeteria already when we arrived.  They came over to me asking why it took me so long to get down there and I was holding everything up by not showing up.  I just stared at them blankly because I had no idea what was even going on.  So, I bombed my first 30 minutes as a teacher.  I caused a little bit of crazy town on the first day of school, but did that mean that I was a terrible teacher?  No.  I simply had not been taught the routines and procedures of taking my students to breakfast each morning.  Once I understood the routine, then my mornings were great and I never caused chaos in the cafeteria again. 

This is the same thing we do to our students.  We are going along teaching them in a traditional manner such as lecturing, giving them notes, having them complete worksheets, etc.  Then all of a sudden we tell them to do a station rotation where the kids rotate through 8 stations over the course of a week.  On top of that, each station has different tasks for the kids to do – some that they have never done before and some that use completely new technology tools.  Then we sit back and watch.  What is it that we see?  Kids who are confused.  Kids who don’t get finished.  Kids who are off task.  So, we decide that blended learning doesn’t work with “our kids.”

If you have the right procedures and routines in place, blended learning can be done successfully anywhere.  I’ve seen it done very successfully in the poorest schools where kids have to walk through metal detectors just to enter their own school building.  What do these schools have that other schools do not?  High expectations, routines, procedures, and strong relationships. 

Let’s take a look at four ways that we can make blended learning a success in all classrooms. 

1. Explicit Teaching and Practice, Practice, Practice!

We must intentionally teach students the new structure that you are going to be using and then have them practice doing a “walkthrough” of the structure.  For example, if you want to have your students do a station rotation then practice splitting them into groups and having them move to their first station.  For the sake of practicing give each group a fun, review task to complete while at the practice station.  Meanwhile you can walk around to each station to make sure that students know what they are supposed to do… 1. Read the task card at your station.  2. Work as directed on the card (groups, pairs, individual, etc) to complete the task. 3. Stay on task while at the station.

2. I’m Stuck!  Now What?

Students need to know what to do if they don’t understand something or have a question.  I’ve seen different ways to handle this such as having an expert in each group that can help while the teacher is working with other students.  Another strategy I’ve seen is using colored cups – green goes on top if you are doing well and red goes on top if you need help.  A lot of teachers use the strategy 3 before me where students must ask 3 other students for help before asking the teacher.  Any strategy that you want to use here is fine, you just need to make sure to have a procedure in place so students are not constantly interrupting you while you are working with small groups of students.

3. Student Roles

Create systems that put students in the driver’s seat to manage their own learning by creating job roles for the students.  If you are doing stations, then have a student who is the “time keeper.”  Their job is to set the class timer so the whole class can see how much time they have left in that rotation.  Have “cruise directors” who can help manage the transition from one station to another.  This frees you up to reset the teacher station and prepare for the next group.  Assign one student in each group to be the “materials manager.”  Then this student can make sure to get all needed materials when the group starts at a new station and minimizes extra movement within the classroom.

4. Data, Data Everywhere!

One important last step that will cement all of this together is to make sure you are collecting some sort of data every day.  It could simply be a quick exit ticket or a Quizizz, but you need something to hold the students accountable for learning and also a way to guide the learning for the next day.  Basically, you need to know who got the concept today and who didn’t.  By collecting data each day, you always have that information at your fingertips and can use that to create groups, guide re-teaching and inform enrichment.

Station Rotation: Why Should I Do That?

Station rotation is a great model to use in your Blended Learning Classroom.  When I say that, notice I didn't say in your elementary classroom.  There is a big misconception out there that station rotation is an elementary thing and it doesn't work or is not needed in the secondary classroom.  I would argue the exact opposite.  Station rotation gives so many opportunities for inserting great pedagogy to allow for a more personalized learning experience through blended learning.

We've been doing station rotation in the early elementary grades for ages.  Stations typically included the classroom being broken up into 3 groups.  The 3 groups would rotate through 3 stations that included small group time with the teacher plus two other station that had "activities" set up for the students to complete.  All students went through the same stations for the same amount of time and did the same things.

While this has been a great model for the elementary classroom for all these years, this isn't blended learning.  Wait!  I know, I know.  I just told you that station rotation was great for blended learning and now I'm saying this isn't even blended learning.  Well... station rotation in the most traditional sense is not blended learning because it is missing a few key components.  Let's take a look at ways that we can tweak this long standing model to make it fit in our blended learning model.

First, we need to figure out a way to add some flexibility in pace, place, path or time.

Let's look at our blended learning graphic again to see how station rotation can add the flexibility that we are looking for.  By using stations, you can easily allow for flexibility in pace for your students.  You might be wondering how that is accomplished.  After all don't all students go to all stations for the same exact amount of time?  The answer is maybe.  That's one possibility, but when we are looking at the purpose of that variation I start to wonder what is the purpose of that model.  In my mind, the purpose of that model is control.  The teacher is in control of everything going on in the classroom.  The students are all getting the same exact learning experience for the same amount of time.  That seems very equal, right?  It might be equal, but is it fair?  Do all students need the same exact thing for the same amount of time?  Let's compare my struggling learner to my GT student.  In this scenario, let's imagine a station rotation with 3 stations and one of the three is a teacher-led station.  A GT student does still need some time at the "teacher station" to help clarify misconceptions and build relationships.  The struggling learner also needs time at the "teacher station" but they are not just clarifying misconceptions.  They may need reteach, more scaffolding and extra guided practice.  Both groups should meet with the teacher, but they probably don't need to meet with the teacher for the same amount of time or to receive the same exact lesson.  In this scenario, things are not equal, but they are fair because both students are getting what they need.

By simply altering the amount of time spend at different stations in order to better meet the needs of students, you are offering flexibility in pace, but the students are also getting flexibility in path because now the teacher is free to alter what happens at a station based on the needs of students.  I already mentioned how the teacher station could be altered to meet the needs of students, but the other stations could be altered as well.  By offering some choice at the other stations, you can offer students some flexibility in path to better meet their needs.  When I say offer choice, you might be thinking, "If I offer kids choices at the stations, then how can I ensure that they are learning what they need to learn."  Remember, just because you offer choice doesn't mean that you are giving up all of the control. You are still in charge of coming up with the choices, so you get to make sure that each choice still contributes to the learning.

As an alternative, you could also offer choice in path by allowing students to choose what stations they will attend.  Maybe instead of offering 3 stations, you offer 5 stations and the students have to go to at least 3 of the 5 stations.  Students get some choice in how they learn.  Maybe one station involves art and speaks more to some students while another station might involve creation on an iPad and that station might speak to other students.  In this format, you can also make 1 or more of the stations mandatory.  Maybe you want to have a teacher station and it is mandatory that all stations attend that station at some point.  The great thing about this model is that you get to make the rules and you can make this look however you need it to look to meet the needs of your students.

Last, don't forget that their must be some use of technology to really make this blended.  Make sure that when using technology, you are using it in a way to really enhance the learning or deliver things that can't be delivered any other way.  For example, you could have video directions posted at each station to help the students get started.  You could also have some videos posted that offer students support in the concept at a station if they need extra scaffolding.  In essence, you are now able to multiple yourself.  Another great way to use technology is to have students creating and/or collaborating using tools like G Suite, Flipgrid, Padlet, PicCollage, Puppet Pals, etc.

You might notice that I didn't address time and place in this post.  That's not to say those aren't great ways to add flexibility to your blended learning classroom, but they don't lend themselves as well to the station rotation model.

If you are interested in trying out the station rotation model, remember to start out with baby steps and work your way up.  Get students used to rotating and being independent learners at two stations before you add in a teacher station so that you can be free to guide and redirect students as needed.  Once they have two stations down pat, then add a third station or even a fourth.

Do you have some great tips on implementing station rotation?  Leave us a comment below and share your tips!!