1. Station Rotation

Definition: A rotation-model implementation in which within a given course or subject (e.g., math), students rotate on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion among classroom-based learning modalities. The rotation includes at least one station for online learning. Other stations might include activities such as small- group or full-class instruction, group projects, individual tutoring, and pencil-and-paper assignments. Some implementations involve the entire class alternating among activities together, whereas others divide into small-group or one-by-one rotations. The Station-Rotation model differs from the Individual-Rotation model because students rotate through all of the stations, not only those on their customized schedules.

Benefits:

• Requires very little adjustment to teacher contracts, facility design, or the classroom overall. It’s just a new way for teachers to organize the flow of time within their classrooms.
• Allows teachers to work with smaller groups of students. Can help ameliorate the problem of high student- teacher ratios. Some schools have implemented a Station-Rotation model to deal with large class sizes.
• Facilitates the use of project-based learning as a station to complement the online-learning station.

Challenges:

• Teachers need to learn new skills, such as how to plan the right small groups for face-to-face time in response to the data that the online-learning station is generating.
• Classrooms need a robust learning management system to help fit each student to the right online content and to generate actionable reports for teachers.
• The online-learning station needs to be easy for students to do on their own with minimal adult intervention.

Example: Mrs. Fernandez’s Reading class is divided into three stations. On a daily basis, students rotate every 30 minutes among the online instruction group, the teacher-led instruction group, and the collaborative projects group.