I am a teacher at the Duke Hospital School. Our students are often inpatient, and due to COVID, cannot have visitors. They are often confined to their room/bed, or the hospital unit. Unfortunately, the hallways on our children’s units do not have windows, so hallway walks, that are encouraged and needed for recovery, are often super boring.
Being able to utilize The Walking Classroom has helped us increase hallway walk time with students, since we can encourage them to finish the podcast, or at least half way before we go back and finish our listening from their room.
Another benefit has been, that when students are not feeling up to talking or walking or “normal” school assignments, they can listen to a podcast from their bed. It doesn’t require them to stare at a screen or book.
Sometimes we see students in our outpatient clinic. Often they are feeling much better than when they were in the hospital, and our small classroom can feel confining. I have been able to utilize The Walking Classroom with students who have attention/focus issues. This way, they can learn and move their body at the same time. I have had great success getting a student to focus on an entire podcast because we could walk the clinic steps and floors!
Thank you so much for supporting education and helping us bring information in non-traditional ways, to our non-traditional school setting!
Brianne Starin
Teacher
Hospital School at Duke University Medical Center
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