Walking Meetings with Students

I was in Stockholm and Copenhagen in March of this year.  I was at a Move and Learn Conference in Stockhom and our host Martin Lossman gave an amazing idea.  He told me about his walking meetings with his students.  He talks about goals and how the class is going on a quarterly basis with his students on a 1 on 1 basis.  So simple.  So I tried it.  It worked like a charm.  A student had come in for help in the afternoon and we simply went for a walk to discuss how things were going.  We just went for a 2-3 ;minute walk.  We talked about what he had been working on and where he hoped to be. It took away all those uncomfortable pauses and eye contact issues some students have.  The other thing that walking does is it puts you on the same level as your student.  Often we are on physically different levels than our students which creates a "I'm Helping You" attitude.  Walking beside students creates a "Let us do this TOGETHER" attitude.   We got back to the math office and we went to work on what he wanted to cover.   Brilliant.  Thanks Martin! twitter @marlos71

Paul and Tina Zientarski, Martin Lossman, Linda and David Sladkey in Stockholm