Centers refers to learning centers. Learning centers
are "stations" located throughout the classroom that
are focused on a specific developmental activity.
Many of these stations are based on literacy. Students
generally choose which centers and how much time to
spend at each center. Center participation may be
more scripted, for example in the case of story time,
all the students will converge in the story book center
as the teacher reads a story. One classroom might
have a limited number of iPads, in your example so the
iPads are located in a center, or dispersed among
different centers for specific activities. A science
center might be using an ipad for time delayed
photography of plants growing or might be in a math
(numbers) center for playing a specific math game or
learning program. Centers get more use in earlier
grades (K-3) and less use in older grades (4-6) where
students are expected to spend more time at their
desks as centers become fewer and smaller.
Generally, what happens as students advance in
grades is the number of literacy centers decreases
and your centers consist of "corners" where you may
have a library corner, a technology/computer corner
and a science corner.
The idea is that students will self direct their learning
through natural curiosity and individual interests as
guided by the limitations of the learning center. The
plant growth learning center above may have clover
growing in egg shell cartons that the students did as a
scripted activity (a scripted activity is just that, a
whole class activity that the students are guided
through doing). The rest of the learning center will
consist of an iPad doing time capture (students can
review the time capture and make their
expressions/reflections in their desk journal), a table
on the wall for students to record some data such as
plant height (either by drawing or using a ruler also at
the learning station) and watering their plants. The
teacher might make observations daily that some
students plants are looking really thirsty. That's the
learning center it's one activity with a limited number
of tasks, and focused objectives.
Some learning centers are static, such as a library
center, students select a book to read and then
complete a worksheet and journal expression. The
worksheet asks what book they read, what was the
main character, what happened in the story and how
did it end. This type of center doesn't change.
Dynamic learning centers like the science center
above have a specific unit objective and then are
changed when the unit changes. A library learning
center stays the same (static) but an independent
reading center may be dynamic, and focused on
plants for instance. The center will have a few
selections on plants or gardening (borrowed from the
school or public library) and then students will
complete some activity. This activity might be a
prerequisite for the student to plant their own clover
seeds in the science center or some other activity.
When the unit changes (from plants to dinosaurs)
then the reading selections in the dynamic
independent reading center change.
A good guideline is that at least half of a classrooms
learning centers should be literacy focused. A
classroom should always have one teacher guided or
direct teaching center (some classrooms call this
"desk time")
My classroom has 13 learning centers:
6 of them are literacy (independent reading, library,
poetry, writing, storybook, listening).
1 theater center(this could be considered literacy, but
my classroom is required to have one "art" center
even though my students have an art period).
2 math centers (puzzles and games).
1 science center
1 research center (this is my computer corner, I have 4
chromebooks)
1 global culture center (this is my video center).
1 Teacher center
Each of my instructional blocks are 30 minutes each.
We start the day with announcements and attendance
(15 minutes), followed by guided instruction for one
lesson block (30 minutes). We then spend 3 lesson
blocks in learning center (90 minutes), then have
morning recess (15 minutes). After recess they have
art or music, and then PE (2 blocks each, but really
about 45 minutes each). Afterwards I pick them up
and we have reading time (this is required), students
may either read independently at their desks,
participate in my story reading or use a pass to the
library (this is a reward system, students who break
classroom rules can lose a library pass). Then they
have lunch followed by afternoon recess (45 minutes
total). After recess we have 1 lesson block of guided
instruction 30 minutes) followed by 3 blocks in
learning centers (90 minutes). We finish the day with
bridging (15 minutes).
The main difference is that elementary classrooms are
self-contained and not departmentalized. You have
the same group of students all day. Elementary
teachers generally teach reading, language arts,
science, math, and social studies. The priority is
reading and literacy development, which is the focus
of most elementary education assessment (usually in
grades 3 and 5). If students can't recall a historical
date that's not going to matter to many
administrators. If a student isn't at or above grade
level in reading however than questions need to be
answered and interventions need to be put in place.
Reading is everything. If your students are reading at
or above grade level than an elementary teacher is
doing their job and they can use that to pretty much
dismiss everything else.
Specialist teachers usually teach PE and art (including
music). The teacher will walk their students to the
gym and the art or music room and then pick them up,
which together become the elementary teacher's
conference period. They then take their students to
lunch and recess which becomes the elementary
teacher's lunch period. My school has two recess
periods, but some have only one and some schools
don't have recess at all.
On 6/21/16, Making a change wrote:
> I'm making the change from 7th/8th grade to an
elem position that will
> require me to work with teachers and students of all
6 grades (k-5). To get
> a better idea of how elem functions, would anyone
mind telling me some
> basic things about how elem is structured
differently? Or what the biggest
> surprises were if you transitioned form middle to
Elem? I remember a little
> about calendar and outclasses from when I was an
elem library aide but
> that was a long time ago and being a classroom
teacher is way different. I
> want to avoid sticking my foot in my mouth when I
begin doing pd in
> August. I've been reading blogs of how teachers
manage 1 iPad classes in
> elem and they are dropping lingo about centers and
such and secondary
> centers are different!
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