The Lab Rotation model offers personalized instruction possibilities that allow you to adapt it depending on your needs. This keeps in mind both the learning needs of students and the resource abilities of the school or organization.
The idea behind it is basically that learners participate in offline activities in the traditional brick-and-mortar setting, and then move to online activities in a computer lab. It looks almost the same as the Station Rotation model, but there’s a difference. Unlike the Station Rotation model, where both offline and online activities take place in one and the same class, the Lab Rotation requires learners to physically change rooms.
The Lab Rotation model can be set up the following way: learners spend one part of their day in a computer lab working through the online curriculum at their own pace. Another part of the day they work in a class with a teacher to reinforce what they learned in the lab and can cover tricky questions.
In a computer lab, learners can work flexibly at their own pace, spending as much time as they need in order to understand the material. During face-to-face interaction, teachers provide support or enrichment activities as needed. A teacher may also group the students, and all the groups may be working on something different based on where they’re at and what mastery level they’ve shown.
Another method of implementing this model is as follows:
This method allows the teacher to intervene quickly if learners need additional support.
While the Lab Rotation model is most commonly used in schools, it can still be applied effectively in organizations. Formal face-to-face training takes part in a meeting/training room to impart the key learnings. The employees can then move to another meeting room to access the online learning on their devices or laptops, or return to their desks. The trainer is then available in the training room to offer additional support and guidance in smaller groups.
At first, you may experience some difficulties while setting up a new learning model. Teachers or trainers will have to change their teaching methods significantly, like reorganizing activities and curriculum. But after you do it once, you can further reuse the same planning.
When moving learners to the computer lab station, in a school setting particularly, you will need additional supervisory support from a teaching assistant. Otherwise, if the primary trainer is required to supervise instead of providing additional support, you will lose the personalized aspect of this model.
Another challenge is to choose the software and find or create your own learning content. You should take into account the ease of use for both teachers and students, assessment options, results tracking, cost, etc. You might want to start with some all-inclusive tools like Easygenerator. Easygenerator is a good start allowing to create courses and interactive quizzes, track learners results and share them, check learners engagement and more.
Additionally, as a cloud-based authoring tool with zero learning curve, it is incredibly simple to start creating courses with Easygenerator. And you can utilize your organization’s BYOD (bring your own device) policy. All learners need in order to access the “computer lab” station is an internet connection and their own laptop or tablet.
