The Walkabouts Platform Provides a Quick Formative Assessment of Academic Content (Michigan)

Profile

Maple Grove Elementary School is a public school in South Haven Public School District in South Haven, Michigan. It serves about 300 students from prekindergarten to 3rd grade.

Tera Crichton is a 2nd grade Lead Teacher at Maple Grove Elementary in South Haven, MI. She has 13 years of instructional experience, of which six years have been spent in 2nd grade. She has also taught kindergarten, 1st, 3rd, and 4th grade classes.

“Walkabouts provide a great formative assessment as they allow me to quickly see which students grasp a concept and which students may be struggling with the material.”
– Tera Crichton

Goals

For years, Tera Crichton has incorporated kinesthetic movement into the learning experience for her students. She explains, “I [intentionally] have a very active classroom, so when I learned about the Walkabouts platform from the literacy coach at our ISD [Intermediate School District], I knew I wanted to try it.” Because she has an active classroom, Crichton wanted a program that would allow her to incorporate content seamlessly with movement. To achieve this, she began integrating Walkabouts twice a day into her daily lessons, using the lessons during her English language arts block in the morning and then as a warm-up during her math block after lunch.   

Outcomes

When Crichton first introduced the lessons in the Walkabouts platform to her students, she says it took them a few times to realize they had to pay attention and follow the directions, but they quickly connected the correct movements to the corresponding academic content. Her students now look forward to the lessons every day and are disappointed if they are not able to complete them each day. Crichton has also used the complementary Walksheets, worksheets with a movement component, as an enrichment opportunity for students who want to continue a lesson or enjoy extra work. When asked what she likes most about the platform, Crichton shares that it provides “a quick, formative assessment that allows me to see which students grasp a concept, and which ones may be struggling with the material.”

She said she also believes including movement in learning activities activates both sides of the brain, which makes a huge difference in how students process information.

Recommendations

Crichton learned about the platform in the latter half of the school year and is looking forward to incorporating it in her lessons at the beginning of the next school year. She has also shared the platform with her principal and other teachers in her school in the hopes that her colleagues will use the lessons with their students in the upcoming school year.