1. The Power of Learning Centers
A Quick Quiz – of Sorts

2. 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.

4. 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.

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

6. 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)

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

8. 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

10. 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)

11. 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