Purpose: To activate students' prior knowledge through conversation and movement
Description: Walk Around Survey can be used as an activating or summarizing strategy. In this activity, students are given a topic of study and asked to move around the room for the purpose of conversing with other students. During these conversations, students will share what they know of the topic and discover what others have learned.
Procedure:
1. Assign a topic for the Walk Around Survey.
2. Pass out a survey form to each student in the class.
3. Allow students an allotted amount of time to survey three classmates (informers) on the given topic.
4. When students are completing the survey form, the soliciting student should write the name of the informer on his/her worksheet in the left-hand column. He/she will then record three facts from the student informer on the worksheet in the three empty blocks. He/she will then move on to find a second and third informing student to complete the survey worksheet.
5. Have students return to their seats and complete the Survey Summary.
Hint: This activity can be used as either an activating or summarizing strategy. It can be done in the classroom or, even better, outside on a nice day.
Sample Walk Around Survey Topics:
1. What can you do to become a responsible user of the Internet?
2. If you were creating a database about X, what fields would you most likely include?
3. Name ways in which spreadsheets are used in the workplace.
4. How has the Internet changed the way we communicate and interact with others?
Lipton, L., & Wellman, B. (1998). Patterns and practices in the learning-focused classroom. Guilford, Vermont: Pathways Publishing.