“I can’t ever go back to teaching difficult concepts to the whole group. Quite frankly, by the time I finished passing out manipulatives to the class and monitored their use, I just wanted to collect them and end the lesson. Small groups are a gift to my students.” -32-year veteran teacher
As promised yesterday, I’m posting clips of the stations in the Tabor Rotation Framework…
What is Tabor Rotation? Tabor Rotation is a comprehensive instructional framework which rigorously, systematically, and simply differentiates learning in mathematics. One of the highlights of the Tabor Rotation Framework is student-led, heterogeneous, collaborative small groups of students who rotate through learning stations twice a week. Tabor Rotation further differentiates and helps each student reach her potential via small-group, needs-based, instructional sessions with the teacher.
Days two and three of Tabor Rotation have students in four heterogeneous small groups rotating to each of the four stations. Each rotation lasts approximately 20 minutes. Students rotate through 2 stations a day. The four stations are Teacher Time, Games, Manipulatives, and Application. These stations vary the modality through which the student learns and helps provide for the different learning styles and interests in the classroom.
In the Teacher Time station, the teacher works with ¼ of the class while introducing and developing concepts which would be difficult to for students in a large-group setting.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/16407046[/vimeo]
In the Games station, mixed groups students practice a concept and communicate their understanding with other students in a competitive or challenging activity. The activity may have the students competing against time, each other, or with partners.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/16415980[/vimeo]
In the Manipulatives Station, mixed groups of students concretely explore a concept and develop a deeper understanding before moving to the iconic phase of conceptual development.
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/16416147[/vimeo]
In the Technology/Application station, the mixed groups of students spiral back to previously learned concepts by solving problems, using technology, or completing paper-and-pencil tasks.
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/16416256[/vimeo]
I’m a visual learner—I have to see it, not just read about it. Hopefully, these clips will help some of you “see” what small groups might look like in a math class.
“I like Tabor Rotation because it lets us play around and learn at the same time, you know, relax.” -Rashine, 3rd Grader
“Tabor Rotation has helped me do my work. I do not worry about if it is hard because I know I’ll have different methods of solving problems. Math this way helps me ‘get it’.” -Ashley, 8th grader
“I am so glad my teacher started Tabor Rotation. It make math fun and you can learn stuff that’s hard if you do it another way. I hardly even noticed that we were doing math work. I thought we were having fun.” -Jasmine, 5th grader