KINGWOOD — Walking and learning will go hand in hand at Kingwood Elementary’s fourth grade this year.
The Walking Classroom is a national nonprofit that aims to see students exercising without sacrificing learning time. One of its programs is podcasts loaded onto small devices that students can listen to through earbuds while walking.
Moving while you learn, in other words.
Kingwood fourth grade teacher Sarah “Sally” Fowler applied for a Walking Classroom grant three or four years before being awarded one this year.
“The idea is that you can improve cognitive function by having students walking and listening to a lesson,” Fowler said.
The lessons are pre-loaded on 22 small, square audio pods. Students attach ear buds, also purchased with the grant, and listen to the podcast as they talk.
A total of 167 lessons are loaded onto the pods, with topics ranging from social studies to science and literature. Students may learn about subjects ae varied as Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the work of Albert Einstein or Salvador Dali’s art. A STEM based curriculum is also available.
“Before I even start with my class, I have some lessons to do,” Fowler explained. The plan comes with lesson plans and lessons that Fowler will present to students before they listen. Afterwards they will be given quizzes to judge how much they learned. There’s also suggestions for a “turn and talk,” when students turn to a neighboring student and discuss what they just heard. “So they can share what they’ve learned,” Fowler said.
The devices will be shared among all fourth grade classes at Kingwood Elementary.
“The piece about this I really love is first of all it gets children outside, it gets them moving and discover how wonderful it is to move and get fresh air after sitting in the classroom. They need to move. They’re not built to sit in a classroom all day long,” Fowler said.
The lessons are accessible to all students, regardless of reading ability or other challenges, she said. And, “it definitely makes it more fun. I think it’s going to help build a sense of community. And that’s important to me as a teacher also to build that sense of community with other learners,” Fowler said.
In her classroom, part of respect is respecting yourself and your body, “so it ties into that as well.”
Each podcast starts with a health and literacy message. The grant was about $3,100. This is the first time the Walking Classroom has been introduced at Kingwood Elementary.
The devices have a lifetime of about three years.
At the most recent Preston County Board of Education meeting, Board Member Jeff Zigray praised Fowler’s initiative in applying for the grant. The content is in line with state standards, he noted.
“I think it’s a great thing,” Zigray said. “If you want to learn about volcanoes, if you want to learn about history, they’ve got [167] different topics.”
