This week I traveled east on TX Highway 150 to the small town of Coldspring, Texas. Although the downtown shops and restaurants looked quaint and inviting, I drove straight past them to one of the best parts of Coldspring–its students. I had the honor of working with a fifth grade class from Coldspring Intermediate. We had a BLAST!

I was there because a couple of dedicated new teachers have been eager to learn how to differentiate instruction in their classroom–even before they had a signed contract in the district! I was impressed with their enthusiastic determination to do what is best for all students, and, being on the same mission, I scheduled a visit.

The demonstration of the Tabor Rotation Framework began, as always, with the Leadership Academy. The leaders and co-leaders of each of the four heterogeneously mixed groups were immediately enthusiastic and took on their roles very eagerly as they learned about the activities they were about to do with their teams.

The demonstration continued with a Whole-Group Mini-Lesson. During the lesson the students were working in pairs and stopping to think with their partners. They really enjoyed the Think-Pair-Share structure since it gave them an opportunity to communicate with others during the teacher-directed portion of the lesson.

Watching the teams move into the four Tabor Rotation stations and begin to work together took my breath away! You would think they had been doing it since the beginning of school! As I went clipboard cruising [https://glennatabor.com/2010/02/clipboard-cruising-using-a-learner%E2%80%99s-permit/] around the stations, I heard some amazing statements from students.

While playing “Fraction Flip” with fraction bars the students called me over to confirm what theyy were thinking about which part of a whole was the greatest amount. One student was explaining his answer to his teammates and using the conversion of fractions to percents. He even got a 3/4 fraction bar and showed them how “each of the shaded sections was 25% of the whole and by adding them together you have 75% shaded.” Note in clipboard…student is converting in his head with complete accuracy and is readily able to justify his thinking.

One of the best parts of the day was listening to the students share their thoughts of “doing math this way.” One student said he really liked it because he had learned math and had fun at the same time. His entire table agreed with him. One student looked at him and said,

“Yea! Math is supposed to be fun!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself!