There is a contingency of people who think that simply teaching concepts and ‘big picture’ ideas will result in students who can think critically about any situation that may present itself. As a history teacher, I am of the mindset that without the facts and the story to connect to, students will never know that a particular event is supposed to be an example of that particular big idea or concept.

Facts are important. They are what creates the story and allows students to compare and contrast events from different time periods. And sometimes the only way to get kids to remember facts, is by drilling them with flashcards.

At Engaging Stations, we offer two different types of flashcard decks. Memory Sparks are your basic question on one side – answer on the other flashcard decks. Most of our decks range from 32 to 39 cards. Looping Cards are a way to bring the review to a larger group of students and still keep them engaged in the material being reviewed.  Now for some execution ideas.

Play a game with the flashcards!

Tic Tac Toe – Pair students up, give them a deck of cards and a tic tac toe board. Have the students divide the cards into two piles. The students then begin to ask each other the questions. Every time one student gets an answer correct, they get to take a turn in tic tac toe. Have them keep track of the cards they miss so they can review those answers again. When they have finished their stack, they switch and start on the other stack. Give a prize to the student who wins the most tic tac toe games.

Flashcard Challenge – Pair the students or put them in triads. In the center of the desk, place a token of some value. (homework pass, candy, school incentive buck, etc.) Have the students divide the cards as equally as possible. The students will quiz the person to their right. Whoever is asking the questions will continue to ask until the other student misses one. At that point, the student will write down how many questions they got right in a row. Play passes to the next student. After a given amount of time, the student who answered the most questions correctly in a row, receives the token from the center of the desk.

Looping Cards – Looping cards are meant to be distributed amongst a larger group of students. No student should have more than four cards at one time. The play starts with one student reading the “who has” portion of one of their cards. That question or statement is answered by the “I have” on another student’s card. That student then stands, and reads their “I have”, then continues by reading the “who has” from that same card. Play will loop through the group until it ends with the student who originally started the game. Time the students and when the play is over, have them shuffle and redistribute the cards, and play again – seeing if they can beat their original time. Have different groups or class periods compete against each other for the best time.

Do you have another great way to use flashcards to review material? Post it as a comment and share with your fellow educators!!

Here’s hoping that you had a restful break and are ready to hit the ground running. The notorious testing season is upon us all. For those of you who had the privilege of attending the NCSS annual conference in December, I hope you were able to bring home some great new ideas and strategies to implement in your classrooms.

We led a great session at NCSS, dealing with stations. How to use them in the classroom and troubleshooting ideas for creating them yourself. People walked away with a new-found understanding of how this process works on the middle and high school level. For those of you who were not able to attend, below you will find some of the pointers discussed at the session. These are meant to help you avoid different pitfalls and mistakes that come with trying to create stations yourself. Of course ultimately, we would love to just create them for you. That is the great thing about what we do at Engaging Stations… we take the time and work out of the process, and give you the resources to do what you do best, TEACH!

Additionally, please know that we welcome any and all ideas. If you have a great idea for a station but aren’t sure how exactly to make it work, email us! If we use your idea, we’ll send you your station – made with our high quality materials – for free! We hope to hear from you soon! Email ideas to: perfectlyfrankpapers@gmail.com.

In the meantime, check out what we have to offer and tell your friends and colleagues!

5 Tips for Station Creation

1. Choose your topics wisely. Complicated topics are not suitable for stations use unless they can be broken into sections and made into separate stations.
2. Choose your activities wisely. Make sure the activity does not detract from the content. Also, try to pick an activity that can be completed in a short amount of time.
3. Carefully think through the process that you want students to complete as they work through the station. Always simplify. If there are too many things to do, they will either run out of time or be confused as to what to do when.
4. Always plan to have a way to check for understanding. You can have a “teacher station” where the students rotate to you and you check their answers on their handouts and ask extension questions to monitor for understanding. This is essential. Just as stations can solidify correct learning they can also result in confusion if the teacher is not actively involved in the process.
5. Use your professional learning community to help you. If you want to make stations for a unit review, delegate the creation responsibilities. Each teacher on the team can produce one set of the station they create for each team member. In the end you only create one but benefit from the use of many!

Keep an eye on our website for new additions to the collection.

This past Friday and Saturday, we were pleased to present two new products at the Texas Council for Social Studies Conference.

Wheels of War, a highly hands-on and interactive stations, challenges middle school students as they learn about the causes of the American Revolution. Spin the wheel and learn the facts and colonial response to eight major events that led to the American Revolution. Then answer scaffolded questions about the material.

America the Beautiful is a great way to introduce the landmarks of American history to elementary level students. The base poster is made of a durable plastic called styrene. With it, comes the first series of landmarks. Each landmark has a photo placard and a descriptive placard. Simply change out the placards each week or every few days to teach your students a new landmark! After you purchase the initial base poster, you only need purchase the subsequent series placards. Incorporate it into your existing centers rotation and over the course of a school year, you will teach all of the required landmarks listed in your state standards. Each series is available in a Kindergarten level – with a large amount of pictures; Level 1 – suitable for first and second grade students; and Level 2 – suitable for more advanced 2nd grade students and third grade students.

Coming Soon! Keep an eye on our website www.engagingstations.com! Or, join our email mailing list and get automatic updates of new products that are introduced. www.engagingstations.com – scroll to the bottom of the home page and enter your email address.

America the People – highlighting important figures in American History.

America Invented – highlighting inventions and inventors who shaped American History.

Celebrate America – highlighting holidays that are unique to America.

Wheels of War: The America Revolutionary War

Wheels of War: Road to the Civil War

Wheels of War: The Civil War

As always, all stations kits come complete with all lesson plans and handouts. Everything is already assembled and ready to go. All you need to do is copy the handout and let the kids loose!

In classes like these, many times the last thing you want to do is make the work MORE engaging. You want to keep control, put them in rows, make them be quiet. I’m here to tell you that those are the best classes to use stations. Sure, you have to set expectations and adhere to them, but when troubling children have choice, and novelty, and variety, and movement, many times you will see a different side of them.

I had a teacher that I supported a few years back, who was very much a traditional teacher. She had her desks in rows. When you walked into her classroom, students were busy, quiet, compliant. Everything was “just so”. But there was little to no real learning going on. Test scores were low and the percentage of classroom failures was very high. This was the last teacher in the world who wanted to try stations. But, I convinced her to give them a shot. Would you believe it? She LOVED them. She told me afterwards that the kids were so excited and engaged, that she had had a lot of fun too. By incorporating a “checking for understanding” teacher station, she was finally able to speak to students one on one about the areas in which they were having difficulty. They didn’t take up extra time as she had feared. Instead, real learning took place and she saw real improvements in the success of her students.

Don’t be afraid of potential chaos. State your expectations, give clear instructions for the assignment, and let your kids be free to learn!

www.engagingstations.com

We are happy to feature an expanded collection of Looping Cards. We now carry:

US History 1607-1865

US Constitution

All things Civil War

Science – Force and Motion

We are looking forward to adding at least a dozen products in the next two weeks. Keep an eye on our pages for more information.

An exercise in the practical application of the seven principles of the US Constitution

As promised, I’ve decided to post a few more examples of the Engaging Stations products for you to view. The Website most likely gave you a bit of a taste of what we are doing, but it is always nice to see more information before making decisions on what you think will be best for you.

The other nice thing about posting the pictures on the blog is that you, the educator, can comment on what you see. Your comments and suggestions help us to  improve our product and therefore improve the success of the students that we reach.

The following images are from the station The Seven Principles of the Constitution. In this station, students view cartoons and descriptions of each of the seven principles of the constitution. They then read 14 different scenarios that describe the practical application of those principles. The aim is to accurately sort the scenario among the principles provided.

I am in the research and development stage of creating stations for the “ISMs”. I plan to have stations for capitalism, fascism, communism, socialism, totalitarianism, etc. by the end of January.

It would be immensely helpful if I could have some insight in to what are the big road blocks for students with regard to these concepts.

Do they understand the concept but have trouble attaching the name to it?

Are they completely lost, no matter how you try to teach it?

Have experiential exercises fallen flat with these concepts?

Send me your comments! I’m eager to hear your concerns and struggles so that I may develop solutions to make your job easier!

Have a great week!

This blog is designed allow educators to share their experiences in using the Engaging Stations kits. Feel free to post your successes and points of contention to help your peers avoid those pitfalls. We want to know what works, what doesnt, and what just needs a little tweaking.

This page will also be used as a forum for sharing ideas for new stations, information about field testing stations and new product introductions.

Stay tuned as we highlight the products that Engaging Stations have to offer.