Walking Classroom Institute

Programs: The walking classroom institute offers two primary programs (1) the walking classroom english language arts curriculum for 5th grade and (2) the walking classroom english language arts curriculum for 4th grade. Both programs are aligned with the common core state standards and provide a school year's worth of educational podcasts pre-loaded on mp3-type players called "walkkits" for each student and each podcast is supported by an extensive teacher's guide (including lesson plans, vocabulary words, and comprehension quizzes) for each teacher. Our educational materials may be purchased directly by schools or other interested organizations (afterschool programs, homeschoolers, etc. ). For schools that would like to implement our program but cannot afford to do so, the walking classroom seeks donations and grants on their behalf. As of year-end 2014, our program is being implemented in over 600 classrooms, across 48 states and the district of columbia, with more than 12,000 walkkits delivered. Our goals for 2015 are to add at least 300 more classrooms across the country and deliver an additional 9,200 walkkits and to be able to satisfy many requests on our waiting list of more than 200 deserving teachers from around the country. 2014 achievements: (1) semi-finalist for the kate b. Reynolds charitable trust "innovations in rural health award" national competition(2) featured program of duke university's 2014 winter forum: "rethink education: the innovation challenge"(3) increased the number of classrooms that are implementing the programs from 33 in 2012 to over 450 at the end of 2014. Number of clients served: since our founding in 2011, we have distributed nearly 12,500 walkkits. Most walkkits are shared with at least one other student, so we can conservatively estimate that we have served approximately 18,000 students. Achievements that are not measureable: our user feedback is excellent and encouraging. Survey responses from 138 teachers across the country who implemented the walking classroom during the 2013-14 school year are summarized below:-99% say they enjoy doing the walking classroom (twc) with their students -98% say twc helps meet the needs of students with different learning styles -98% say twc is helpful in supplementing the curriculum-97% say their students are in better moods after participating in twc-97% say twc program is easy to implement -94% say their students are more engaged in class discussions after twc lessons-87% say their students are better behaved after a twc lesson-84% say they noticed an increase in health awareness and healthy choices in their students since starting twc. Feedback from students: almost 500 students, from urban, suburban and rural settings all over the united states who used the program during the 2013-14 school year indicated the following in year end student surveys:-93% agreed they were better able to concentrate throughout the day after twc-92% agreed that twc helped them understand content-91% agreed twc made learning more fun-85% agreed that they know about healthy habits since participating in twc-77% agreed that they enjoy walking more since using twc-73% agreed that they made healthier choices since participating in twc