Program teaches girls to dance and do math and BOOSTS scores!
This was a really cool video I recently saw on CNN. This teacher combines Kinesthetic movement through dance combined with teaching math skills.
"Sinha realized that not only did dance boost confidence, but that movement in general had been integral to her ability to learn.
That Eureka moment became the birth of SHINE, a tutoring program Sinha began while at MIT. It incorporates dance, movement and math in a new approach designed to boost girls' confidence and performance.
The basis for SHINE is the concept of "Kinesthetic learning," which essentially means moving your body in order to better retain information.
Interested middle school girls come to the program after school, and work with mentors on activities that put math concepts into action. They might, for example, hold hands to create a shape on a grid, then move to reflect the shape across an axis drawn on the floor. Playing games using corners and instructions helps show how probability works, and choreographed dance moves illustrate the principles behind trigonometry.
Later, they work out math problems on the board based on what they learned, and frequently finish with a break-out dance session just for fun. When I was there, they learned a routine to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," then tweeted a video of the results to the singer."
CNN.com
Just got caught up on your blog posts. I liked what Katie shared about “stand up” for learning. There are similar studies emerging for workplace wellness that support her points. Lindsey was right on the money with her highlights of your literature review that support physical activity during instruction. Katie’s video about Gummy Bears was fun -- I’m ready to rock ☺. I can see why the students like this activity. And Lindsey’s latest post about kinesthetics, confidence, and mathematics motivated me to think of ways this could be applied in an array of learning settings.
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