Engaging Students, One Center at a Time
Mallory Howard
Student engagement is one of those educational phrases that is sure to grab the attention of those in the field of education. It is something that we strive for everyday in the classroom. We want our students engaged, learning, and having fun. This is when students are most likely to learn new things and possibly retain the information that we so carefully push their way, each day. In the education field, we seldom stay in the same grade and subject area for long, and when I moved from teaching primary students to teaching sixth grade, my first concern was how to engage these students. These students are quite different from elementary students, but not near the maturity level of upper high school students, either. What do they enjoy? How can I make learning entertaining to my students, now? These are the questions that I racked my brain with at the beginning of last year.
Throughout my first year of teaching sixth grade I tried several different methods and found many modes of teaching that really engaged my students and got them learning. I learned that variety and change really inspire my students to perk up in their seats. There is no replacement for excited teaching. A great way to get kids at the intermediate and middle school levels excited and actively engaged in learning, is through the implementation of learning centers. By adjusting what I thought of as an elementary method to a higher level, my students became excited about learning reading and writing. They loved the days when they would come into the classroom and see the activities laid out across the classroom, unknowing of what they might “get” to do that day. During my centers students switch every 17 minutes to a new task that involves higher order thinking and writing skills. They did not get bored and their enthusiasm lasted throughout the year, making even grammar seem like a game.
Student engagement was my first concern, but beyond that, centers allow for many other educational benefits, as well. Differentiation is possible through the teacher-led center, where you can customize instruction to what each student individually needs. There is also more one-on-one time with students, which is crucial to effective learning. In the teacher-led center you are free to work on intentional guided reading groups, while the rest of the class is engaged in meaningful activities that boost student learning and achievement. In the time I incorporated centers into my classroom, student test scores made a significant gain, with my lowest achieving students gaining as much as 18% on test scores. In two days, I was able to cover a week’s worth of material and review.
Managing your classroom during centers is crucial. I would suggest that before you implement centers, you lay the ground rules of what is and is not acceptable during each rotation; sometimes, you will have to remind students of this. In the worst-case scenarios, I have asked students to pull their seats near my small group and work on their own, if they are interrupting others in the group. I also have my exit slip, or formative assessment, related to the tasks students complete in centers. Students know that they are required to write about what they have learned, so they are more likely to be involved. When you have fun activities, behavior issues are greatly lessened because students are engaged, learning, and having fun.
There are several ways to set up centers in your classroom. An essential tool will be a timer. It lets students know that this task will end, you are required to complete it, and you will be moving to a new activity soon. There is no time wasted. I do eight centers, over the course of two days, each week. Each center lasts roughly 17 minutes, so we will complete four centers each day, allowing for switch time and formative assessment slips. Activities we normally do in class seem to have a new thrill for students when they are cut into task cards or placed on the SmartBoard. Sometimes the simplest of things will hook students. When activities became games, my students started paying attention. Through the two-day centers, I had two writing centers, two grammar centers, and four reading centers. These varied each week in the activities that we do, but all of them correlate with the Kentucky Common Core Curriculum, and the specific standards that we are covering for the week.
You can adjust the centers for any content that you are teaching. Whether you are teaching elementary or high school, you should alter each center to the texts and topics that your students need to learn. There are countless resources on the internet (as seen below) and in various teacher stores to create meaningful centers. Some activities that my students have enjoyed include: a SmartBoard center, task card centers, and clicker centers. The most important thing to remember is that this is another way to get kids actively thinking and learning. They think that they are simply playing games and moving around the room quickly, but students are actually learning valuable information and retaining this information.
Resources:
Task cards and activities for any grade level or topic:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com
Activities to use with technology:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Digital-Divide-And-Conquer/Grade-Level/6-8
Bloom’s Questions to print and use with any text:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B486usIYF0-jY2IzYzkzZWItNGYwZi00MDIxLWE0YjUtNjEwMTU5NDlhMzI4/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1
Expository Writing:
http://rightdownthemiddleblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/fun-with-expository-writing.html
Jenga (Adaptable to any topic)
http://mrslodgeslibrary.blogspot.com/2012/02/library-trivia-jenga-center.html
Hands-On Grammar:
http://read6351.wikispaces.com/Hands+On+Grammar+in+Writing+Workshop
Free Graphic Organizers:
http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/graphic/graphic.htm
Activities and Lessons for SmartBoards:
http://exchange.smarttech.com/index.html#tab=0
Throughout my first year of teaching sixth grade I tried several different methods and found many modes of teaching that really engaged my students and got them learning. I learned that variety and change really inspire my students to perk up in their seats. There is no replacement for excited teaching. A great way to get kids at the intermediate and middle school levels excited and actively engaged in learning, is through the implementation of learning centers. By adjusting what I thought of as an elementary method to a higher level, my students became excited about learning reading and writing. They loved the days when they would come into the classroom and see the activities laid out across the classroom, unknowing of what they might “get” to do that day. During my centers students switch every 17 minutes to a new task that involves higher order thinking and writing skills. They did not get bored and their enthusiasm lasted throughout the year, making even grammar seem like a game.
Student engagement was my first concern, but beyond that, centers allow for many other educational benefits, as well. Differentiation is possible through the teacher-led center, where you can customize instruction to what each student individually needs. There is also more one-on-one time with students, which is crucial to effective learning. In the teacher-led center you are free to work on intentional guided reading groups, while the rest of the class is engaged in meaningful activities that boost student learning and achievement. In the time I incorporated centers into my classroom, student test scores made a significant gain, with my lowest achieving students gaining as much as 18% on test scores. In two days, I was able to cover a week’s worth of material and review.
Managing your classroom during centers is crucial. I would suggest that before you implement centers, you lay the ground rules of what is and is not acceptable during each rotation; sometimes, you will have to remind students of this. In the worst-case scenarios, I have asked students to pull their seats near my small group and work on their own, if they are interrupting others in the group. I also have my exit slip, or formative assessment, related to the tasks students complete in centers. Students know that they are required to write about what they have learned, so they are more likely to be involved. When you have fun activities, behavior issues are greatly lessened because students are engaged, learning, and having fun.
There are several ways to set up centers in your classroom. An essential tool will be a timer. It lets students know that this task will end, you are required to complete it, and you will be moving to a new activity soon. There is no time wasted. I do eight centers, over the course of two days, each week. Each center lasts roughly 17 minutes, so we will complete four centers each day, allowing for switch time and formative assessment slips. Activities we normally do in class seem to have a new thrill for students when they are cut into task cards or placed on the SmartBoard. Sometimes the simplest of things will hook students. When activities became games, my students started paying attention. Through the two-day centers, I had two writing centers, two grammar centers, and four reading centers. These varied each week in the activities that we do, but all of them correlate with the Kentucky Common Core Curriculum, and the specific standards that we are covering for the week.
You can adjust the centers for any content that you are teaching. Whether you are teaching elementary or high school, you should alter each center to the texts and topics that your students need to learn. There are countless resources on the internet (as seen below) and in various teacher stores to create meaningful centers. Some activities that my students have enjoyed include: a SmartBoard center, task card centers, and clicker centers. The most important thing to remember is that this is another way to get kids actively thinking and learning. They think that they are simply playing games and moving around the room quickly, but students are actually learning valuable information and retaining this information.
Resources:
Task cards and activities for any grade level or topic:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com
Activities to use with technology:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Digital-Divide-And-Conquer/Grade-Level/6-8
Bloom’s Questions to print and use with any text:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B486usIYF0-jY2IzYzkzZWItNGYwZi00MDIxLWE0YjUtNjEwMTU5NDlhMzI4/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1
Expository Writing:
http://rightdownthemiddleblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/fun-with-expository-writing.html
Jenga (Adaptable to any topic)
http://mrslodgeslibrary.blogspot.com/2012/02/library-trivia-jenga-center.html
Hands-On Grammar:
http://read6351.wikispaces.com/Hands+On+Grammar+in+Writing+Workshop
Free Graphic Organizers:
http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/graphic/graphic.htm
Activities and Lessons for SmartBoards:
http://exchange.smarttech.com/index.html#tab=0