Walking with Seminars

• Background and purposeLow levels of physical activity and sedentary behaviour are a growing health problem globally and physical inactivity is associated with increased risk of numerous ailments, cardiovascular disease and mortality. To counteract this, the Walking seminar was invented at KTH in 2015. It is a small step towards a less sedentary lifestyle for students and teachers. Several teachers have already adopted walking seminars, but since it can be perceived as unorthodox, at least before you have tried it yourself, we offer this workshop to give hand-on experience on how to conduct a walking seminar.Work done/work in progressWe started by transforming an on-campus course into a blended course to make sure all participants had accessed the information that would be discussed during the seminar. These walking seminars were evaluated among 131 students and nine teachers leading the walking seminars (Bälter et al. 2018). The responses to the student survey and teacher interviews indicate that discussions, sense of well-being and the general quality of the seminar improved, regardless of how physically active participants were the rest of the time.Results/observations/lessons learnedStudents might be sceptical towards a walking seminar, before they have tried it. However, if introduced a day with pleasant conditions, very few are willing to go back to sitting indoors. There is some time lost for the organisation (putting on clothes, dropping of bags, opening doors), but since the discussions outdoors are way more intense than the indoor discussions, this more than makes up for the lost time. The methodology for walking seminars has evolved since its beginning and at this workshop you will get a feel for state-of-the-art when it comes to promoting and arranging a walking seminar.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Didaktik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Didactics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Course development

Peer learning

Student engagement and motivation

Media Technology

Medieteknik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)