We have plenty of ways to support you in your implementation of our program, starting with our Teacher’s Guide and other existing adopter resources!
Tackle the Teacher Guide
The Teacher’s Guide is an invaluable resource, providing complete lesson plans for each podcast, including a synopsis, standards addressed, objectives, procedure, discussion questions, and comprehension quiz! The guide itself begins with useful Program Management tips and incorporates a series of lessons to introduce your students to The Walking Classroom.
Whether you are new to The Walking Classroom or a veteran adopter, these introductory lessons are helpful to review. Taking a few extra minutes of class time at the beginning of the year to establish routines and review expectations will ensure smooth sailing!
In addition, the Appendix provides some FAQ’s, background material on the program, podcast listings, and more. If you are not currently using the Teacher Guide, you are missing out!
Sharing a class set among several teachers and looking for an alternative to the print version of the binder? Check out the (especially environmentally friendly!) electronic version of the guide.
Be Watching the Blog
We began this blog not just to provide folks with relevant resources, information, and ideas, but also so that program adopters could share their own insights and experiences with The Walking Classroom. Your active participation is encouraged and very much appreciated. Feel free to contribute your comments on blog posts or share your story. We look forward to hearing from you!
Basic Adopter Resources
We have a bevy of resources to support each podcast, including slide decks, electronic quizzes, and suggested videos! And, in 2018, The Walking Classroom rolled out our updated (and much more user-friendly!) Adopter Resources Page. We restructured it so that adopters could easily access all podcast-specific resources on a single page. In addition, we set it up so folks could search by podcast title, subject area, health message, character value, or via our new themed groupings!
Slide Decks
The slide decks contain supplemental information for each of the units within Program 4, Program 5, and STEM. Complete with a podcast summary, key terms, and discussion questions, the slide decks make it a breeze to introduce those podcast topics!
Looking for ways to support different learning styles or to differentiate instruction? Not only are the slide decks great resources to enhance the experience for your visual learners pre-walk and post-walk, they also help support ELL students!
› See a sample slide deck for our Idioms podcast!
Electronic Quizzes
Trying to minimize potential paper piles? No problem! All of the podcasts’ comprehension quizzes are also available via Google Forms.
Students complete quizzes online where their answers are recorded, then teachers view student responses live or have students complete the quiz and then grade it using Flubaroo, a free add-on!
› View a sample electronic quiz!
Supplemental Videos
In addition to the slide decks and electronic quizzes, we have also compiled a list of suggested videos for each program to provide a brief, visual follow-up to your walk. Note: Having recently made some changes to this list, we are in the process of updating the information on the adopter resources page, and hope to complete this by the first week of September.
Additional Resources
This past summer, we enlisted additional interns to help curate collections of additional resources for all of our podcasts. All of these resources have been reviewed, uploaded, and included under the Additional Resources heading on their respective podcast pages!
Now, where possible, we have added the following additional resources:
- a printable of worksheet
- a hands-on activity
- a multi-day project
- an online game or quiz
- a virtual field trip
Learn More . . .
To support adopters in accessing and using the Adopter Resources, to introduce the additional resources, and to share some tips for using The Walking Classroom for a flipped classroom approach or for remote learning, we also released a Training Update. If you have not yet taken the time to check it out, be sure you do!
. . . and Take Some Time to Explore!
No matter how learning is happening this fall, these additional resources will support you! Incorporate them in the classroom or direct your students or their parents to use them at home.
Free downloadable (and reproducible) printables from a variety of sources or freshly created by The Walking Classroom allow students to demonstrate their knowledge of podcast-specific or podcast-related content. With hands-on activities, students can take matters into their own hands with your supervision (or their parents’ guidance).
Multi-day projects enable your students to work individually or in small groups over several days. They can solve a problem, make a visual or video to summarize what they’ve learned, complete a longer experiment, or use their newfound knowledge to create something new! Online games and quizzes provide an interactive online opportunity for your students. They can explore topics further on their own or to test their knowledge about a podcast!
And, if you’re looking to take your study of a podcast topic beyond the classroom in this time of social distancing, virtual field trips can help with that. These allows for a variety of experiences. Students can tour the National Hurricane Center, view primary sources at the Library of Congress, and study food chains at Belle Isle Aquarium. They can also visit Emily Dickinson’s home, explore Tenochtitlan or Chichen Itza, get a glimpse of Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park, and more!
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