In Ms. Burkham’s fourth grade math class at Nichols Mock Elementary, learning is always in motion. With daily stations and intentional spiral review, students rotate through activities at their own pace to keep skills fresh and reinforce key concepts.
After a mini-lesson on a new topic, students are put into groups and placed at stations throughout the room.
A recent set of stations focused on input and output and multi-step multiplication in expanded form, and included a station dedicated to revisiting some of the most-missed questions from the class’s most recent CBA for practice and review. At another, students tackled fast-paced multiplication sprints, racing the clock to find missing products or factors and tracking their growth with each round.
Together, these activities allowed students to strengthen their understanding, build on what they already know, and get up and move around as they completed their tasks.
“It’s really helpful for spiral review,” Burkham said. Spiraling is an approach that revisits skills and concepts regularly over time, rather than learning something once and moving on. “We’re able to keep building on so much prior knowledge, and it keeps things we’ve learned fresh in the brain while still incorporating fun, current topics.”
A set of stations may last a day, a week, or even two weeks, depending on how well the students are learning the new content. Having students working independently also gives Burkham time to pull small, mixed-ability groups to better understand where each student is and where additional support may be needed.
“We adjust based on needs,” Burkham said. “From our data, we’re able to see where students are doing really well and what still needs to be addressed.”
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