Think about the most profound memories you have experienced in life. The most lasting knowledge can be associated with stress, pain or motion. These vivid memories are burned in our brains for a lifetime. If only educators could deliver instruction with this type of staying power. Well... you can! Learning through movement increases the oxygen to the key learning areas of the brain improving knowledge retention and recall (Jensen, 2000). Kinesthetic learning along with dynamic teaching experiences drives knowledge deeper.
The Warwick Middle School Technology Education (Tech Ed) program enables students to explore their human-created world. They learn that technology extends the human reach beyond what was thought impossible only yesterday. Through tactile activities and problems solving challenges students learn the fundamentals of technical design, system analysis and career exploration. They explore technology utilized throughout our society and recognize how these devices meet our needs and wants.
For years students have enjoyed actively exploring technology in an exciting laboratory (lab) environment. Prior to entering the lab, students acquire and review knowledge through traditional lecture means in a standard classroom setting. Learning at times can be mundane and stressful. This presents classroom management and knowledge retention issues. To help alleviate this problem, elements of movement were injected into the program. According to Traci Lengel and Mike Kuczala, authors of The Kinesthetic Classroom (2010), teaching and learning through movement enables the instructor to push knowledge past the “explicit” what/where learning to the “implicit” how/wow learning. Movement improves attention, spatial learning, memory formation, cognitive remapping and our overall state-of-mind (Jensen, 2000). Just having students stand while teaching or reviewing information results in a 10% improvement over traditional methods (Lengel & Kuczala, 2010). The following information describes where kinesthetic movement was introduced to the Tech Ed curriculum at Warwick Middle School.
Preparing the Brain
Throughout the semester students learn and review information in a typical classroom setting. Here learning transfers via demonstrations, lecture and verbal inquiry. Students are expected to sit quietly, record information and respond appropriately. Periodically students may stare-off into space, talk to each other, interrupt and perform other inappropriate acts. Why do they act this way? Kids want and need to move.
Changes made to the program were chosen to properly prepare the brain for learning. Last year the school moved into a new building. The classroom has all the new gadgetry for learning including interactive whiteboard, projector, variable lighting, audio system, and DVD/VHS player with integrated Z-band (television) broadcasting. There was no question that the environment was well equipped for learning about technology. However, this environment needed to be more than just techno savvy. Students also needed to be mentally comfortable and safe – ready to learn. To ensure a brain-compatible classroom the following characteristic were considered when developing movement activities:
· Establishing safe and supportive surrounding
· Offering a rich, stimulating atmosphere
· Providing a community approach
· Creating opportunities for group learning
· Making sure students are hydrated
· Allowing the brain to make connections while purposefully using transfer
· Incorporating rehearsal and practice
· Working within memory time and capacity limits
· Incorporating movements that facilitate cognition (Lengel & Kuczala, 2010)
The Warwick Tech Ed program has always attempted to tie learning to student experiences/interests, establish knowledge patterns/connections and instruct with a degree of enthusiasm. However, purposeful movement was never considered in the curricular development stages. If anything, movement was considered a failure to manage properly. What we did not realize is that 85% of students are kinesthetic learners (Lengel & Kuczala, 2010). Students need to move or ‘play’ in order to learn better. According to the Better Movement blog “…play is the best solution to difficult education problems…” (Hargrove, 2011). The more challenging learning becomes the more we need to play.
Provide Brain Breaks
In order to keep the brain ripe for technology knowledge consumption students need to have breaks when necessary. Tech Ed students meet once a 6-day cycle for 87 minutes. Here they quickly review past knowledge, learn new information and then apply knowledge through lab activities. Students completely enjoy and remember the lab experiences. Unfortunately, the knowledge preparation time can be challenging for the student as well as the instructor. In the past, various knowledge retaining 'tricks' were employed, but students continued to struggle with information retention. To alleviate this problem various brain breaks were chosen including three shakes, body writing, back-to-back passing, snatch-it and elbow trick (Lengel & Kuczala, 2010). These breaks were found to be most suitable in a tight classroom setting. As a result, students had time to reorganize and refocus their brains for additional learning.
Support Exercise and Fitness
Supporting exercise and fitness in the Tech Ed classroom was a difficult stretch to consider – no pun intended. The lab already incorporates movement throughout the room so why would exercise and fitness be necessary? After pondering this question one day, while students assembled electronic circuits, the instructor realized how necessary movement was in order to answer questions, locate materials and keep alert. On very busy days he needed to take movement one step further and perform exercise routines such as table dips, jogging in place or ride a skateboard up and down the middle isle of the lab in order to keep up with student demands. If fitness is important for the instructor, fitness must also be important to the students. Just the other day one student was periodically air-drumming. After observing this behavior for the first half of the class period it was obvious the student required this movement to maintain focus. Upon further observation, the student’s attention to detail and comprehension was found to be above average.
Joel Kirsch, a fitness expert, shows a video of four exercise activities students can perform to enhance learning (Edutopia, 2008). These motion activities inspired the Tech Ed instructor to develop an exercise and fitness activity related to the current unit of study. As a result, while students were learning to solder, they were required to march around the classroom saying the three components of soldering – solder, cut and cool (SCC). They yelled out a component for each step taken. The speed and direction were varied as needed. Another variation was having students sign (sign language) the SCC components while moving around the lab.
Developing Class Cohesion
Regardless of the methods employed to teach, students must feel safe and valued in the learning environment. They require positive feedback – acknowledgement that their responses are welcome and important. Kinesthetic activities enable students to achieve an appropriate emotional climate. Let's face it, students love to move around. So why not incorporate movement in the classroom to better facilitate the learning process. The following activities were chosen to improve class cohesion in the Tech Ed classroom, balloon volleyball, name pass and elbow-to-elbow (Lengel & Kuczala, 2010).
Reviewing Content
Warwick students have Tech Ed once every eight days (the weekend included). It is difficult enough to get students to remember homework assignments let alone content knowledge. Time is spent reviewing content to hopefully get students to perform well on assessments. So much time is spent reviewing information that little time is left to learn new content. To alter this imbalance several movement activities were selected. A simple way to improve content review is to just have students stand up as mentioned earlier in this blog. Movement activities found appropriate for the Tech Ed classroom are grab to gab, team test, toss-catch review, ordering on the move, vocabulary charades, red light-green light, bingo review and cardio review.
Teaching Content
Teaching new information can be exciting and challenging at the same time. Students are always eager to learn about new technologies especially if they are going to make or design one. However, students require frequent reminding of procedures necessary to complete tasks in the lab area. To improve procedures retention, sign language was utilized to teach each component of a process. Recently students learned the process of soldering safely. Typically students learn soldering information via demonstration in the classroom and later perform that knowledge in the lab area. Now students are required to watch a demonstration video while completing a soldering study guide. The video teaches the most important components of soldering (SCC), as mentioned earlier, through use of sign language. Students were required to learn and perform these signs in order to enter the lab and begin soldering safely.
Final Thoughts
The kinesthetic learner processes information more efficiently than the typical sedentary student. Here at Warwick Middle School it is evident that movement in our classroom shapes positive learners. Students are more alert, engaged and confident about exploring technology. Not all aspects of purposeful movement have a place in our program, but over time movement will be injected where necessary to keep students’ learning fresh and effective. Remember, the more we learn, the more we need to play!
References
Edutopia. (2010, May 26). On a mission to link the body and brain in education -- one push-up at a time. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/physical-education-advocacy-push-ups-kirsch
Hargrove, T. (2011, January 8). The importance of play for motor learning. Retrieved from http://toddhargrove.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/the-importance-of-play-for-motor-learning/
Jensen, E. (2000, November). Moving with the brain in mind. Educational Leadership, 58(3), 34-38.
Lengel, T., & Kuczala, M. (2010). The kinesthetic classroom: teaching and learning through movement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Lengel, T., & Kuczala, M. (2010). The kinesthetic classroom: teaching and learning through movement (workbook). Melrose Park, PA.
