The Power of Learning Centers A Quick Quiz – of Sorts

If you were talking to a first-year teacher, what would you tell him/her learning centers are? Work with a colleague to create a definition.

Learning centers are designated activities that provide an engaging way for students to work independently of the teacher in small groups, pairs, or individually to reinforce and extend classroom learning.

Quick Write: Without consulting colleagues, make a quick list of what you believe to be the benefits of learning centers.

Compare your list to the one below! Benefits of learning centers: • support current adolescent literacy research • support current research on adolescent development • motivate students (allow students to take charge of their own learning) • appeal to social nature of middle school students (group activities) • meet academic needs of individual students through differentiation (e.g., reading, writing, listening, speaking; Garner’s Multiple Intelligences; Bloom’s Taxonomy)

THINK – PAIR – SHARE! Think of as many Ways as possible of assessing your students’ needs for learning center topics.

Did your list include any of these…? learning styles inventory reading survey reading levels (STAR, Gates, etc.) writing survey writing sample state test scores sight word assessment phonics assessment vocabulary pretest content pretest

WAYS TO GROUP STUDENTS FOR LEARNING CENTER WORK: • group by need/skill • group by activity • group by literature • group by interest • group by learning styles • random grouping (# drawn, students wearing red, etc.) • self-selected grouping (students select their own groups) • flexible grouping (change groups as needed for any/all of the above)

How Many types of Learning Center activities have you tried? file folder games/activities computer envelope games/activities magnetic games/activities interactive bulletin boards box games/activities (commercially- or teacher-made) gift bag games/activities computer games/activities listening center activities self-correcting activities activity menus