Think Sheet November 13, 2012

What are you thinking about right now for your area of inquiry?

I am thinking that I am going to look into the goals of my literacy stations. I want to think about their purpose, how to keep them engaging and challenging for a variety of reading and levels. I also want to look at how I am assessing the work students do at stations, when I should change stations (either add or remove a station), and how I am assessing when/how students are transferring what they do in stations to their reading and writing work.

What is one thing you learned when you had a conversation with your focal student(s)?

I learned that it is hard for my students to express a specific reason why we do work stations—they were all able to say that the goal is “to learn” but they can’t tell me exactly why we use stations to learn. That being said, they were more in tune with why we work with partners (perhaps it is too much to ask them to know or explain why we learn through stations). 

Did you find out what you were hoping to find out in the conversation?

No. I was hoping to find out which stations they felt they were learning from and which stations they were not feeling challenged at. I wanted to learn why they think we use stations to learn (as opposed to the other parts of our day that are whole or small group). Perhaps, as I search for the answer to that question on my own, I was turning to them, my eight-year olds, for guidance. If they know why we use stations, then maybe I’ll start to understand.

What do you want to know now?

I want to know which stations they have mastered and are ready to move on from. I want to start adding “may do’s” to the stations for kids to challenge themselves with extensions. I want to know if they are transferring the skills practiced in stations into their writing. I also want to know about the social aspect of workstations--how, if in any way, are work stations helping students with their social skills or their interactions and relationships with their peers? How often should I change partnerships? 

Where are you now in thinking about a repeating or routine data source?

I am thinking that I want to continue with audio recordings of students working with their partners at workstations. I also want to collect their written work from their language arts notebooks. I would also like to video kids at stations. I think the routine data source will be audio recordings at workstations. I am wondering if it matters if I record the same students at the same stations or if I can get as good of data if I record them at random stations.

What do you want help with today from your small group?

I would like help with direction. What changes should I make now? I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting and data collecting but now is the time to use that data to change my teaching.

After group conversation:

What are you thinking now? What are your next steps for your inquiry?

I am thinking that some of the stations need to have “must do’s” and “may do’s” in order to have extensions for students who are mastering a station. I think that I also would like to have the learning objective written at each station in kid-friendly language and adjust the routine so that students first read the goal before they begin their work. I might even have them copy the goal into their notebooks (although, this sort of thing can be a time-sucker for some students). I want to take some time to look at workstations and the work of my focal students in order to adjust the stations after the Thanksgiving break. I also want to look at partnerships and think about changing them. I want to make sure I don’t change too much at once, though. I also want to make sure that I am collecting data on a weekly basis—I’d rather have too much data to sift through at the end than not enough. 

Reflection: Student Interviews

Interview with Thanh and Beatriz:

Why do we do work stations?

T: To know words better.

B: So we could learn more.

Why do we work in partners for work stations?

T: If we get stuck, someone can help us on that.

B: I think the same thing as Thanh said.

How do feel about work stations?

T: comfortable about what we’re doing

B: Good. We get a lot done.

What do you like about work stations?

T: Learn a lot and it’s fun.

B: There’s some stations that help you—like if you’re learning to read a word, and they ask you on a test to make a word, there’s a station that helps you learn how to do that.

Which is your favorite?

T: Contraction memory game because I like contractions.

B: I like contraction matching because you get to find the word and the matching word.

What don’t you like about work stations? à Is there a work station you don’t like?

T: The station I don’t like is word families—because we learned it last year in second grade. Maybe other people didn’t learn it in a different school.

B: Word families because we learned that last year.

Alex and Abigail:

Why do we do work stations?

Ab: To help our learning.

Al: To learn more stuff that you don’t know.

Why do we work in partners for work stations?

Ab: If there’s 2 partners that don’t understand and 2 that do understand, the partners that do understand can do it on their own but the partners that don’t can do it on their own so there are partners where one person does know and one doesn’t so they can work together.

Al: We can help each other out, if you don’t know something you can ask your partner “Can you help me on this one?”

What do you like about work stations?

Al: I like that we learn more, like when I don’t know stuff from the work stations I could learn it.

Ab: We could learn stuff we really don’t understand.

Which is your favorite:

Al: Synonyms and antonyms because I like to do it because it’s fun to me.

Ab: same because I can learn which ones are synonyms and which are antonyms.

How do feel about work stations?

Ab: Feel like we’re learning more in our brains

Al: I feel good. Feels good to me because I like learning about work stations.

What don’t you like about work stations? à Is there a work station you don’t like?

Al: I only like synonyms and antonyms (listed all the others as ones he doesn’t like). The others ones are hard to me.

Ab: I don’t like when people are loud because I can’t concentrate. (none) 

Reflection: 

I didn't realize how much students were enjoying work stations. Following these interviews, I have had to cancel work stations a few times in order to have time to prepare for, take and reflection on a benchmark assessment. Each time, I noticed students expressing disappointment that we were not doing work stations. It is hard for me to decipher if they love work stations because they enjoy working with other people or the freedom to sometimes let the conversation wander...or because they genuinely enjoy the activities. Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I wonder if their responses to my question "What do you like about work stations?" is actually how they feel or what they think I want to hear. As I have looked through their work, I am noticing which stations are more productive (Past, Present, Future sort, for example) and which are less (Build a Super Sentence). The next step is for me to look at the work they produce from each station. I want to look at it independently and then look for the traces of it in their writing. For example, I will look at their language arts notebooks to see what they are producing during work stations but I also want to read their writing looking specifically for the skills they practice during work stations. I could also, perhaps, create a formative assessment of the skills they practice during work stations to see what they are retaining from each station. I do want to keep the partner work time in the day--I understand why they enjoy time to work together. When I think about professional development and the days in which it is lots of information being thrown at me verses the days I have time to work, think and process with my team, they feel very different and it makes sense that the students would need time like this, as well.