Make Learning a Moving Experience

Original Article: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/blog/make-learning-moving-experience

Screen Shot 2015-03-12 at 9.50.04 AMSo you want to reduce the amount of time that your students are required to sit and to give them more chances to move. Could you build more movement into your lessons?

Here’s one idea. Let’s say you’ve just taught a lesson on subtraction with regrouping, and now you want students to practice. Instead of passing out a sheet of problems and having everyone sit at their desks, post chart papers around the room with a couple of problems on each chart. Students move from chart to chart with clipboards, solving the problems and recording their work.

Also, when students’ energy starts to drag, a lively energizer can help. Intersperse quick movement breaks into the day to bring oxygen up to students’ brains and refuel them for learning. Often times, squirming, calling out, staring out the window, whispering to a neighbor, and other such minor misbehaviors are clear signals that students need to get up and move to refocus!

  • Mike Anderson has been an educator for more than 25 years. A public school teacher for 15 years, he has also taught preschool, coached swim teams, and taught university graduate level classes. He now works as a consultant providing professional learning for teachers throughout the US and beyond. In 2004, Mike was awarded a national Milken Educator Award, and in 2005 he was a finalist for NH Teacher of the Year. In 2020, he was awarded the Outstanding Educational Leader Award by NHASCD for his work as a consultant. A best-selling author, Mike has written nine books about great teaching and learning. His latest book is Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems. When not working, Mike can be found hanging with his family, tending his perennial gardens, and searching for new running routes around his home in Durham, NH.

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Mike Anderson
Mike Anderson has been an educator for more than 25 years. A public school teacher for 15 years, he has also taught preschool, coached swim teams, and taught university graduate level classes. He now works as a consultant providing professional learning for teachers throughout the US and beyond. In 2004, Mike was awarded a national Milken Educator Award, and in 2005 he was a finalist for NH Teacher of the Year. In 2020, he was awarded the Outstanding Educational Leader Award by NHASCD for his work as a consultant. A best-selling author, Mike has written nine books about great teaching and learning. His latest book is Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems. When not working, Mike can be found hanging with his family, tending his perennial gardens, and searching for new running routes around his home in Durham, NH.

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