Walkabout as Pedagogy

Growing up on the beaches of Southern California, I always wondered how far one could walk from pier to pier to pier. This summer, I embarked on a 2-day mini walkabout from the Seal Beach Pier to the Newport Beach Pier with an overnight stay in Huntington Beach. I used this time to reflect on my life, pray, memorize scripture, and just unplug from the stress of the season.

The term "walkabout" comes from the Aboriginal Australian practice of a multi-day walk alone in the wilderness to search for meaning and calling, especially in transitional periods of life. Today, the term "walkabout" is used to refer to anything from a stroll around the block to clear your head to a month long pilgrimage to a sacred site for enlightenment, but the main objective is the same ... walk and reflect.

Educators know that movement and reflection both help learning, and there are many movement pedagogies, but can a walkabout be a pedagogy?

Movement 

According to embodied cognition research, thinking is enhanced when the body is moving. Students need to move rather than just "sit and get" lectures and sitting in front of screens. Our brains and our bodies are connected, and movement activates thinking.  Additionally, a 2022 meta-analysis demonstrated that physical activity increases creativity along with executive processing, memory, and attention. Movement, specifically walking, was found to increase creativity by 60%, and this study used a treadmill staring at a blank wall to control all factors. Walking itself, not walking outside in nature or along the beach, but walking by itself (staring at a blank wall) increases creativity. 

A walkabout is constant movement which activates thinking and increases creativity.

Reflection

A key element in a walkabout is self-reflection. In fact, besides walking, it is the primary activity of a walkabout. Like movement, reflection is also an important part of learning. As John Dewey stated, "We do not learn from experiences ... we learn from reflecting on experiences." Quite simply, reflection helps move information from short-term memory into long-term memory, and that is meaningful learning. However, reflection also improves problem-solving, critical thinking, engagement, empathy and understanding. 

Walkabout as Pedagogy

Obviously, students cannot embark on a multi-day walkabout during the school day or within a class period, but there are principles of the walkabout that can utilize walking and reflecting.  Your school environment, student trust level, and age of student will dictate where students will walk, but hopefully, you have a path that students can easily walk and the teacher can easily monitor. Try a few of these ideas ...

1) Essential Questions -- each course has essential questions, but rarely are they discussed outside of the syllabus. Hand each student an essential question and give them a 5 minute walk to come up with a 1 minute answer.

2) Walk and Talk -- pair students and give them a set of review questions to talk through before a test; when they return, mix up the groups and questions for another round. For foreign language classes, this could involve having a conversation in the language being learned.

3) Memorization and Recitation -- give students a 5 minute walk to memorize a Bible verse, poem, lines in a play or a speech with the goal of recitation when the time is up.

4) Sensory Walks and Journaling -- encourage students to walk in silence to heightened their senses; pause to journal what they saw (visual), felt (tactile), heard (auditory), and smelt (olfactory).

5) Self-Regulation -- if students are feeling overwhelmed, stressed over a test, upset about a social interaction, send them on a self-regulatory walkabout with a list of appropriate questions for the context. Practicing deep breathing (e.g. 4 square breathing) and wellness techniques will help them regulate. 

6) Check-ins -- typically paired with one of the other walking pedagogies, a teacher walks for a time with an individual student, quizzing him/her on materials and being available to answer questions one on one; the teacher rotates through all the students. 

7) Scavenger Hunt -- students walk a pre-determined route and find items or complete problems that have been placed there by the teacher. Depending on the age and maturity level, the scavenger hunt can be observational or critical thinking challenges (e.g. riddles).

Of course any pedagogy that gets your students walking and reflecting will work. As this pedagogy grows, more resources will be available.  One program is the "Walking Classroom," and it provides ideas and resources.

I hope the teachers reading this blog, also, can walk and reflect about their teaching as they consider ways to encourage your students to take a walkabout. 

Resources

• Mann KV. Reflection's role in learning: increasing engagement and deepening participation. Perspect Med Educ. 2016 Oct;5(5):259-61. doi: 10.1007/s40037-016-0296-y. PMID: 27638389; PMCID: PMC5035282.
• Mualem R, Leisman G, et. al. The Effect of Movement on Cognitive Performance. Front Public Health. 2018 Apr 20;6:100. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2018.00100. PMID: 29732367; PMCID: PMC5919946.
• Oppezzo M, Schwartz DL. Give your ideas some legs: the positive effect of walking on creative thinking. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2014 Jul;40(4):1142-52. doi: 10.1037/a0036577. Epub 2014 Apr 21. PMID: 24749966.
• Rominger, C., Schneider, M., Fink, A. et al. Acute and Chronic Physical Activity Increases Creative Ideation Performance: A Systematic Review and Multilevel Meta-analysis. Sports Med - Open 8, 62 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-022-00444-9
• Taylor, K.H. (August 26, 2021). "Why students learn better when they move their bodies... instead of sitting still at their desks." The Conversation/Education.  Available:  https://theconversation.com/why-students-learn-better-when-they-move-their-bodies-instead-of-sitting-still-at-their-desks-165717