Crawl, Walk, Run: Preparing students for the real world
At the 2022 Summer Institute, Matthew Komelski, an advanced instructor in the Department of Human Development and Human Science, shared a framework for structuring his classes that he first learned during his time in the Marine Corps called “Crawl, Walk, Run.”
Komelski teaches the First-Year Experiences course, Principles of Human Services, where his students are primarily pursuing careers in education, social work, counseling, or health care. His approach came after years of adjustments and the realization that he couldn’t expect his students to retain the material they learned as first-year students and apply it years later when they entered the workforce.
“I think this approach to teaching is most useful when we’re thinking about educating students for real-world scenarios where mistakes can really cause setbacks or even endanger lives,” said Komelski. “That’s true in the world of health care or clinical work but it can also be true in business where if you screw something up, it costs a lot of money.”
The approach guides students through a process that first introduces them to the concepts they'll need for the work, then challenges them emotionally, and provides opportunities for reflection. Ultimately, they’re required to work each week in the field with supervision.
An important first step in adapting the method, Komelski says, is to understand the ultimate goal for students.
“When using this method, you need to plan backwards. ‘Run’ is the most realistic environment you can conceive, which can be a full-blown simulation or real-life situations,” he said. “What attitudes, skills, and knowledge will they need to succeed in the real world? That becomes the big-picture learning objectives.”
Here’s an outline of Komelski’s approach for any member of the Pathways community interested in applying it to their courses.
Crawl
In the initial stages, the goal is to introduce the concepts students will need throughout the course and provide theoretical frameworks for the service work they’ll be doing later in the semester, said Komelski.
The lectures involve memorization, drilling, repetition, and testing to gauge their retention. Here students are hopefully able to create an intellectual context to help them process and work with the emotions, and possible stress and conflict, they’ll experience during field work and their eventual careers.
“Empathy, for instance, is a common term that everyone can probably give a general definition but what it means professionally in the human services is another thing,” said Komelski. “You need to just introduce that concept and get students to start to think about what that entails, when they feel empathy and when they don’t. The crawl stage is the conceptual introduction.”
Walk
“The walk stage is about application - not the full, real-life experience - but to get students to reflect,” said Komelski. “I find documentary films particularly useful. They allow students to apply a concept or framework to something that challenges them emotionally in ways you can’t challenge them with a multiple-choice test.”
Here students are asked to manage their emotions and reflect on the experience. For example, at the 2022 Summer Institute, Komelski played an excerpt of a documentary on rural poverty which he’s used to challenge the assumptions of his students and allow them to apply what they’ve learned earlier in the course without time pressure or engaging with an actual client or customer.
Run
One of Komelski’s primary professional interests is service learning, which is the key element of the “Run” phase where students spend time each week working outside the classroom.
“The run phase is about trying to control the environment - even though it’s a real world environment - to make sure the oversight and assessment is there so if a student needs additional help or support that it’s there for them,” he said. “They’re learning to work with clients that are very different from themselves and in environments that will give them some professional experience.”
At this point in the course, students work with community partners in elementary classrooms, senior living facilities, or with students with intellectual disabilities. The students are supervised by staff or peer mentors who are keeping journals to assess their performance and provide feedback.
“If there is an issue or setback, there is always someone there to guide students through the experience and maintain the necessary level of care,” he said.
Reflection and Assessment
As the process happens through the semester, and as students progress, Komelski says there are helpful questions to ask as students progress from one stage to the next.
In the initial stages, consider how the important concepts and frameworks were presented and whether or not students will be able to apply them as the course progresses. Did the documentary film, case studies, or role playing exercises get the students to engage emotionally with the course’s concepts? Were they able to reflect on their reaction to what they saw or experienced?
And finally, did their work in the field provide students with the range of experiences to effectively work in the real world when they start their careers?
“Other courses that could benefit from this method are lab courses to connect what students are learning in lecture and testing those concepts in the lab,” said Komelski. “There’s also value for students creating community programs or in business courses where students need to engage with customers. Anytime students are expected to perform in a very realistic environment, I think ‘Crawl, Walk, Run’ is a great way to plan and to get them ready.”
Komelski received a doctorate in human development from Virginia Tech and teaches the First-Year Experiences course Principles of Human Services, along with serving as the director of the Pathways minor Adaptive Brain and Behavior.