What effect does the Station Rotation Model of blended learning have on student engagement and academic success for struggling learners in a second grade classroom?

Seminar Title

What effect does the Station Rotation Model of blended learning have on student engagement and academic success for struggling learners in a second grade classroom?

Blended Learning

2nd Grade

Elementary

Reading

All Disciplines

“Can I go to the bathroom?” “What are we supposed to do again?” “I don’t get it!” Student engagement and understanding for academic success can be an issue in every classroom. For teachers today, meeting students’ individual needs is paramount, but how is that possible with the limited time and resources given? Our learners have wide ranges of skills, attitudes, engagement, and ability levels and meeting each of their individual needs through differentiation to maintaining high academic achievement in your classroom can be a very difficult task to accomplish. Many teachers have turned to small-group work in the classroom to assist them in this venture. They may also look for a quick fix and look for technology to help, but many schools have a lack of technology. That was my situation and in my extensive search for help I found and decided to try blended learning. Blended learning allows the students to be in charge of their own learning through pace, time management, and path while only needing minimal technology. My students are now excited for our Reading time and are pushing themselves for more. There a countless ways to accomplish this form of learning within any learning space and any amount of technology, during our time together we can discuss how I accomplished this task, what my learning environment looks like, and options for your learning environment. Please bring a cell phone or device with a QR code scanner for the presentation if possible.

The question that drove my research was: What effect does the Station Rotation model of blended learning have on student engagement and academic success for struggling learners in a second grade classroom? A review of literature gave information on how blended learning allows for differentiated practices through technology and ideas on how to incorporate it into my classroom. This research also provided ideas for many different blended learning strategies that could be used in a classroom with limited technology such as mine. Finally, the research provided information on how these blended learning models can improve both students academic engagement and success. Using my research I implemented a Station Rotation model and used Flipped lessons within my reading time in my classroom. I set my rotations up on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Students rotated from one station to another every 20 minutes. They completed two stations per day and had a variety of work at each students individual learning level. I collected data primarily on four of my struggling readers. The data collected was based on teacher observation and student surveys on on/off task behavior, academic feelings and findings (fluency, AR, and FAST) , hands-on activities (like/dislike), technology integration (like/dislike), and overall feelings of the rotation by both myself and my students. The overall data collected showed a lot of comradery between my students that led to quality discussions based on the work given. It showed that blended learning provided my students a voice to express what they have learned during the lessons which increased their engagement, and it showed a lot of growth in their academics in. There were slight abnormalities in the data depending on the difficulty of the skill provided and if it was the first time they were introduced to a skill, but overall, the data shows a dramatic increase in their growth. As a result of my inquiry on how blended learning would effect my students engagement and academic success I have noticed a considerable gain in their overall knowledge within my reading classroom and their overall engagement toward the subject matter. I am going to continue to seek out more and new ways to give my students voice and choice in their learning. I will also be searching for new and better ways to conduct my rotational groups to best fit my students needs.