Centers in the Science and Social Science Classroom

This week I started two of my classes at a centers rotation. This is my first step toward differentiated instruction for students. The first class I have also strategically grouped by student reading level and abilities so far in the science and social studies classroom. I am using the ipads and technology in a way to allow students to access information but also remain accountable for work and "silent discussions." My centers are working on a five day rotation. The first day is a group lesson with a skill that includes the "I do" and "We do" practice. This week was line graphing. We are studying biomes so I had students use the ipads to find the daily high and low temperatures for Chicago as the "we do" and then students will gather data on the desert, the current biome we in for our social studies group of Native Americans. This was the center that I modeled on Monday. The rest of the centers the students had some experience doing with guidance in prior weeks. The students are studying world biomes and we have done research on three biomes in a guided manner using Cornell notes for the students to record information about climate, plants and animals, they did this research independently and recorded the Cornell notes at the center. I then created ibooks with embedded videos about the biome of the week and questions for the students to guide them as they watched the videos. The next step was for the students to complete a quiz on the questions in edmodo. The other centers were a blogging center where students spend time going through the writing process and publishing on our class kidblog. Another center was reading biographies about scientists from a book bin which has a variety of reading levels about a variety of famous scientists. When the students are done they complete an exit ticket on my homepage with basic information about the genre, major contribution to science or society by the person, and then add what they found most interesting about the person. The final center was a reading, note taking and discussion center with me about Native American groups of the Southwest. The students complete two centers a day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then have a choice day on Friday. After each day at a center they complete a self-evaluation of their work effort, academic conversations and how well they took care of each center's materials. Friday choice day was by far my favorite. I gave students the day to finish up any of the center work they did not complete. I listed all of the work I would be looking at for each center and then let them determine what items they need to finish, which they wanted to spend more time working on or anything they needed help with I would work with a small group. I then told them once all the work of the centers was completed they could chose to investigate our "big ideas" a step further. We had been focusing on biomes, Hopi people (Native American group), and scientists. From those big ideas the students could pick a creation app that they have experience with (popplet, toontastic, keynote) and create something to show their learning. I was amazed at the work they did! I am a person who has a hard time with using rubrics on creative endeavors as I think it often stifles some creativity and boxes thinking into the rubric. I did not give any rubric or guidelines past the topic. I saw a lot of very positive things on Friday beyond creativity. I saw students making responsible choices and evaluating where they were in their work production and what still needed to be completed. I saw students recognizing they wanted some assistance on things that they worked on independently during the week, and I saw students who were proud of the work they had accomplished all week long. Lastly, I wanted to also get feedback from students about the centers and what they thought was interesting, challenging or not enjoyable. The feedback from students was very interesting to me because there was no "winner" and almost every center was someone's favorite. I have added some of the edmodo comments and I will embed the toontastic app creations.