 In this video, we are going to take a look at the math workshop, math workstation, which is a very essential component of the guided math framework. So guided math workstations are where students are actively engaged in purposeful activities and tasks that you have chosen. They can take place anywhere in the classroom and often take up the whole classroom. So small groups of students, typically three to five students, are engaged in activities or tasks that you, the teacher, has chosen that they can work on while you are working with a small group of students. It can involve such things as math journaling, game station, you might have a computer station. You also might have a station where students are independently working on tasks that you have set out for them. It takes place all around the room. You might have a math station at the carpet. You might have it at the kidney table at the back. You might have it at a computer station. So you are using that whole classroom environment to have groups of students engaged in purposeful math tasks. You can pick whichever playing card you want with your partner. Make sure it's one that you can do. If your partner and you are having a really hard time with one, pick a different one. So when designing your math tasks for each of your math stations, you want to take a look at your program of studies and you really want to make sure that they are purposeful and that they really support student learning. What you also want to ensure is that each of those stations, you provide differentiation. So again, we know that students all learn at different levels, so each of your stations should have the opportunity where there are different levels that students can approach each of the tasks. For example, for games, you might want to have dice that goes from a maybe six-sided dice to a 12-sided dice. So all levels of students can actively be engaged in their learning. So whenever we start any new activity, we do it on its own first before I expect them to do it by themselves with no teacher guidance and no help. So when we first started doing the guided math within our math rotations with our station work, what we did was we would make sure that we really had that one station down. So we'd really only be doing one activity. And then we add another one on, so there's two stations. Then we could add another one on, and there's three. And what I really looked for for activities was making sure that whatever activities we did were flexible, so I don't have to teach 100 different games. I can teach 10 different games, and they're really versatile and can be moved around a lot with different subject areas, different concepts. But the core of the game is the same and I don't have to reteach it all the time. You need to start small. So it is really important that when you are getting started that you only start with one station. So taking that time to really introduce that station, really working on what is that expectation when I'm working at a math station. So you might want to create an anchor chart for your students that say when I am at this work station, this is the my expected behavior. And start small. So you might want to introduce a game to all students, play that game. You know, ask questions, you might be just walking around intervening, letting students know how you can differentiate. Then what you're going to do is once students feel familiar with that game is then that becomes a station. The same with math journaling, you certainly want to let students know what is that expectation. When you are math journaling at that station, what is the routine and expectation of my role as that student at that station? Also being really clear, really taking the time to set up routines and expectations. Even thinking about how am I going to organize when it's cleanup time, do my students really know what is expected of them and what cleanup looks like. So taking that time at the onset before you move to independence at those work stations, that you that teacher take the time to develop those rules and expectations. So students are clear when they go, they know what their expectation is, they know what they have to do, they know that they can differentiate that activity if need be. And you might also want to build in some accountability. So looking at things like maybe responding back, using technology and taking a picture of what they have done. So you want students to be accountable for their own learning and that's what having a successful guided math classroom with work stations will enable you to do.