Sunday, December 12, 2010
Ed Week, November 17, 2010
In this edition of Ed Week I was really excited to see an article on the front page talking about integrating dance and movement into a lesson on photosynthesis. Here is the article, entitled "Schools Integrate Dance Into Lessons". I had a crazy, wonderful Chemistry teacher in high school who taught us the "Dance of the Electrons" in an extremely memorable and enjoyable Chem class. I also know from reading Eric Jensen's book "Teaching With The Brain in Mind" that movement can be a very effective tool for putting information into our long term memory banks. I thought that the teacher described was especially clever to have the students brainstorm and come up with their own dance movements to convey the elements of photosynthesis: water, sunlight, carbon dioxide, and chlorophyll. I bet that the act of creating their own movements will help them to retain this information even more! This reminded me of something I witnessed in my daughter's third grade classroom while doing some of my classroom observation hours. The students created their very own hand and body motions to go along with the song "You're a Grand Old Flag" which they learned as part of a unit on Citizenship. They actually performed the song for me while I was there and were so proud of the movements they had come up with. I also find the idea of integrating the arts (dance, music, film-making, etc.) to be very interesting. Perhaps this is a way to make our curriculum in and of itself is rewarding in the way that Alfie Kohn was talking about? I as a teacher would definitely need some dance training in order to be able to teach this way, but I would love the opportunity to learn how to do something like this.
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I have to admit that I passed by this article, but I found your summary and your personal observations interesting. The more associations (verbal, visual, kinetic, etc.)that we can make with the material to be learned, the better the chances are for the students being able to relate to this material and retain it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, however, if dance will be as effective an association for males, however, especially males like me who have two left feet. In one of the classes that I observe, the teacher sometimes brings sports and sports metaphors into the discussion. The ladies in the class do not seem to find these interesting. It seems to me that the most effective audio/visual/kinetic activities designed to facilitate learning and retention would be those that appeal to both sexes.