I was reading a blog post by Jennifer Gonzales ,from Cult of Pedagogy, on Chat stations and how to use them in the classroom and it inspired me to create one. I have used and loved stations in the classroom where students rotated through several activities, each with a different focus or concept, and each with a different activity. I think that is why I connected immediately to the chat station concept.
The idea of chat stations is to have students discussing the question at hand first, then recording their discussion on their recording sheet to be prepared for a class discussion. Students should work in partners or small groups and have time to discuss and write before rotating to the next one. I was inspired by her blog and video found here: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/chat-stations/so I created do far two different chat stations activities, one for review of linear functions and the other focused on surface area and volume. You can find both of these resources in the resources tab on the main page. The chat stations I designed were to last only a few minutes at each but asked them to instead of solving the problem, analyze the problem in different ways. I infused analysis questions into the chat stations to deepen understanding as well as brain dumps and which one doesn’t belong. I included a recording sheet for the stations as well as a reflection or connection question at the end for students to complete individually.
In my explanation to teachers, I shared that after the chat stations there should be whole class discussion on selected stations. As students are working through the stations the teacher can be moving through the classroom and formatively assessing students. From this assessment, I would select stations students seem to struggle with, as well as stations that offer a variety of responses. This activity helps build math confidence in students as well as increases opportunities for quieter students to share their responses since they have already discussed in a smaller group setting. The whole class discussion allows students to hear multiple viewpoints and strategies to attacking problems. You can create your own chat stations using existing problems or even just open questions you want students to discuss.
One of these days I will get the confidence to “own” my anonymous blog. You are aware probably that English teachers are the real teachers, right? You math folks are a little different :) Although you write very well for a math person.
Stations can be so engaging and highly effective, yet take a lot of frontloaded prep. These chat stations are significantly less prep and focus on increasing discourse where some station activities focus on solving problems. Don’t get me wrong, I love stations, so I love this concept as well!
When I’m visiting schools I’m fascinated by stations but I rarely get to see or hear the up front prep work by the teachers. This sheds a little light on what I’m missing and why many work and some don’t go as I’m sure the teacher planned.