Week 5 (Developing mathematics pedagogies that integrate embodied, multisensory, outdoors and arts-based modalities)

 Reading Reflection:

Kelton & Ma: Reconfiguring math settings with whole-body, multi-party collaborations

 This article was a challenging read for me and took me longer than expected to read and comprehend.  This article was a study that examined how the whole body collaboration can transform how learners experience learning environments and make sense of important mathematical ideas. 

STOP  In the first case study presented, students chose homespots in a fixed physical space (school gym) and a long blue tape line that went across the gym. The students took part in various activities that involved problems around co-ordination and developed strategies for movement along the blue taped line. Students were treated as physical objects that occupied a space on the number line. Co-ordinating the movements of all students was the major focus of the mathematical practices that went along with this activity. 

STOP - The fact that students were moving and doing math physically rather than on pen and paper. Understanding the relationship between physical space and their body movements from the angles of  integer, fractions was a very cool concept and gave me practical ideas about something that I can try in my own classroom. I am actively seeking ways in which I can incorporate movement in maths classroom as I have been noticing that  in my classes the students are spending most of their time sitting in one spot which can be quite challenging for students as our periods are 90 minutes long. I do try to incorporate movement breaks (stretching, laps around the school etc). But I haven't tried a movement activity which directly relates to doing and learning math.

Activity - 

I enjoyed Sarah Chase’s videos on dancing combinatorics. Personally, I really am a slow learner when it comes to coordinating and balancing. So I got to thinking about a simple beginner level activity that will be easy to comprehend and teach for me as a teacher and easier to comprehend for my students.

As it so happens that I was home sick all this week, I ended up trying this activity with my kids at home. I kept the focus on simple counting for my three and half year old.

We came up with a movement sequence:

1 step forward, 2 step back, 3 step to left, 4 step right, 5 step forward, 6 step back, 7 to left, 8 to right.

And repeat. I am including a rough sketch of my initial vision for this movement sequence:

This was a really fun one to try with young kids at home and as an extension of this activity for older kids, we could integrate the concept of distance vs displacement in terms of vectors. The sequences of steps can also be in various different patterns as multiples of 2, 3 or 4 or skip counting. 

I think, depending on the grade level and math concept being covered in class, this activity can be modified accordingly and is a simple yet powerful and engaging example of incorporating movement in a mathematics classroom.