One of the problems of the four period day is the fact that you are sitting for 80minutes straight at a time. While truthfully the sitting for seven 45 minute periods is not much better the 80/85 minute block schedule is tough for most people. When you add all of the time up students are sitting quite a bit during the course of the day. Many students have told me that the sitting itself exhausts them.
Today, I tried to point out something that I thought I mentioned before that it was fine with me if you stand up anytime during the class. During one period we stood during the drill, another I had two students standing and taking notes during the class. All of this is fine.
In an effort to get students to learn while they are active I tried to have human monopoly graphs today which I enjoyed watching. It was the first time we did it and both classes used a different strategy but ended up with a good monopoly graph. I am interested to see does this improve as we go on doing it.
WHAT I REALLY WANT from this blog is ideas that students have to get you out of your seats while learning still takes place. So use the comments to the blog to help me think of better ways to get you up and about in the class.
My browser just ate my previous comment so I'll try to remember what I typed before:
ReplyDeleteI have had some teachers that made us do "Station" activities. Problems would be posted around the room and students would work out each problem while standing at a station, then migrate to the next station. This could be used for graphing-Wednesday type problems (and a handy tool for review). It can also easily be used as a group or just independent activity.
Unfortunately a lot of jobs today require you to sit at a desk from 9-5. While getting up in class is helpful, I don't see how our sedentary lifestyles will change as we move into the workforce.
-- Michelle K
My mom has also been worried that I sit too much. With 6 hours sitting at school then another 2-4 doing homework its hard to be active while still going to bed at a reasonable time.
ReplyDeleteI think a cool way to integrate movement into the daily lessons would be to have us get up and walk to a portion of the room where we can meet in a group of three or four to talk about our three good things and the drill questions. This way, we would be able to get to know our classmates better and work out the drill all while standing up and moving around.
Jake,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea and will try to incorporate it. I wish it could be more in the middle of the lesson but the truth is that you need to be up and about. So I will take any movement. Thanks for taking the time to answer