So during promising practices I learned about something called literacy walks. Basically these are education events where the teacher sets up a variety of stations a student has to walk to and complete a task (usually a fun one) that has something to do with the book or overall theme of the walk. Once they complete one task they move on to the next. The culminating task usually has something to do with the over all point of the book. In this case it was a 3rd grade class reading a book about building things so they built a bridge. This exercise is meant in some way to be just that: exercise. It's supposed to get the students active for a small amount of time and get them out of their seats. While this was designed for an elementary school class I wonder what it would be like with a high school class.
I'm thinking maybe say American History the student could walk through the path of the original settlers and go through each colony and learn something about each of the original 13 colonies. It could be a great preface to a unit on American History.
Or maybe a preliminary unit on poetry where students walk to different stations learning about different types of poetry and maybe at the end making their own.
I think this has a lot of promise and I love the idea of adding a kinetic aspect to learning. I think the more parts of the brain and body the student uses to learn the more the student will retain. In this day and age I think it's great to motivate our students to move around more too.
Do you think you could use this exercise in your class? I'm curious how it might be used in a math class.
I actually love the idea! Especially your idea for the American History class. The literacy walk adds another interactive element to learning, making it both a fun and memorable activity. I think any learning experience, where students can move about and explore, helps them retain more of the content. I could definitely see using this in my classroom. I'm also curious how this would be used in a math class.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about adding a kinesthetic aspect to learning. It's not talked about enough, but we need to remember that part of creating an effective lesson is to attempt to cater to every student's preferred way of learning. Of course, that's somewhat idealistic, but literacy walks seem like a great idea. Aside from benefiting kinesthetic learners, students are active. I think we can agree that keeping high school students engaged is important, and sitting in a seat for an entire period doesn't help. If students are moving, then they're more likely to be consciously thinking about why they're moving, focusing more on the content. It could also limit the "day dreamers" and "nappers" in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to literacy walks in a math class, you could something along the lines of having students learn about how to budget using "real world" math skills. So, each station could be something related to different certain expense. For example, they choose a career that affords them a certain salary, then they visit stations including a "car dealership" or a "real estate agent," and they have to make conscious decisions about how they should spend their money. I could see something like this happening in a middle school classroom. Would this be considered a literacy walk?