I believe
that one of the most significant changes to my teaching through the years is
the way that I think about student bodies within my classroom. It was
just never something that was ever discussed in my teacher training courses,
and it certainly was not a regular feature of my own middle or high school
years. As a teacher, I conceived of students as these entities that
merely showed up in the room, took a seat, participated in some writing,
reading, and talking (along with a healthy dose of listening), and then they
moved on to another class.
I sometimes forget what that must be
like. And then we will have one of those rare professional development
days where we are asked to sit for long stretches of time, and suddenly I can
get a feeling for what it must be like to move from class-to-class only to
spend 48 minutes of seat time at each station.
Of course, movement for the sake of movement in
the classroom isn’t good strategy. In fact, this is supported by the work
of former AVHS student (now cognitive science researcher at University of
Illinois, Champaign) Robb Lindgren who specifically studies a type of movement
in learning known as embodied learning. I wrote a newsletter about it last
year, so I won’t re-visit his work, but it is good to know that there is a body
of research out there to support the use of physical movement as part of the
learning process. While Professor Lindgren is much more specific about
what makes for meaningful movement, I am a little more liberal in how I
conceive of and use movement in the classroom. In fact, I try to keep it in mind as I plan
each day. Is there a way to get them out
of their seats? Will they need to move? Sometimes, I might call an audible, and work
movement into the lesson-- either because they lack energy, or even because
they have too much of it. This means that time of day plays a role in how
I design my lessons, since I am more likely to use movement in my first and
seventh hour classes then in my other periods.
I’ve even seen a middle school English teacher devote the first three
minutes of class to yoga!
Here are some of my most frequent uses of
movement.
Walk the Line: For this, I have students stand in two lines facing each
other with an imaginary line separating them. I tell them that the
activity must be done in silence, and that they are only to walk to the line if
they agree with the given statement. I tell them that I will hold them on
the line for a few moments, and that I want them to think about what they
notice. (I usually use this at the start
of a unit that involves rich discussion.) I’ll start with easy (generally
unrelated) statements like , “Step to the line if you had a good breakfast this
morning.” And move to harder questions,
“Step to the line if you have seen someone get bullied or harassed within the
last week.” I then send students back to journal about their
observations, and eventually share out.
Agree / Disagree / I Don’t Know: I have three stations in my
room marked “Agree / Disagree / I Don’t Know”, and will often have students
move to the station that best fits their opinion or understanding of a given
concept or idea. Sometimes, I will do something like, “Do you believe
teachers should be carrying guns in school? Move to the station that best fits:
agree, disagree, I don’t know”. Then I
have them share their thinking with someone standing next to them, and I call
on a few participants to talk to the class. Sometimes, I’ll even choose statements that
are related to definitions and terms. “I
know what ‘plot’ is and can explain the plot of my current book.”
Walk-N-Talk: I see more and more of this, so I won’t spend a lot of time discussing
it. But sometimes I’ll turn think / pair / shares into walk-n-talks. I just give the class a prompt, and tell them
to make a quick spin around the block of classrooms in A-Wing. Or in some
cases, just up the stairs, down the hall, down the opposite stairs, u-turn, and
back to class. (2-3 minutes). Depending
on the day, I might print little slips of paper from which they can read their
prompts. In the fall and spring, I try to make at least one visit to the
outdoor classroom. And since it is about a five minute walk there, I have
walk-n-talk prompts to be completed on the way out as well as on the way back.
Tea Party: For this, I give everyone a slip of paper as
they enter class, each one with a passage from the assigned reading (I usually
only have five total passages). I tell students to read the passage
silently, and then to consider what the passage means and why it is
important. Then, I give them 6 minutes
to visit three other people, to share their passage and explain its importance
along with why they feel it is important.
Give One, Get One: For this, I give students a slip of paper with 8
blank lines. On the top four, I have them identify four things they found
in the assigned reading that they felt were important. When done writing those out, I have them move
about the room to visit with four more people. In that exchange, they
must give one detail they had written down, and they must get one detail from
their colleague.
There are many other little choices
I might make. I have them come to the board to write graffiti on our
given topic, to vote on the white board, to place an X on a continuum, or even
to just bring an assignment to my desk. Variety is the splice of
life.
I think it is all part of expanding
the tools we have available in our toolbox.
The goal is to find inroads to with students we have not traditionally
been able to reach. So much of what we
choose to do in the classroom centers around control and submission. Allowing for a little more movement can force
us out of that box a little. It requires
a little more tolerance of energy and can provide a moment or two of relief for
those who find the general business of the classroom to be restrictive and
confining.
