Do children learn better when they move their bodies instead of sitting still at their desks?

Oct 13, 2021 | Testimonials

The answer to this question might be a resounding ‘yes!’.   Katie Taylor (mother, professor and researcher of learning with technology) recently contributed to The Conversation. During a Zoom class organised by her 6-year old’s  teacher, she noticed that his hands would begin to fidget with anything at hand, such as Legos and crayons.

This kind of behaviour in a classroom might suggest that he cannot pay attention, or is ‘off task’.   Is this so?  Is it perhaps more correct to understand that his fiddling actually helps him to arouse his mind and keep it focused on the task ?

The answer could be that sitting in front of a computer screen interferes with or completely detaches people from our ability to take in and process sensory information.  To learn most efficiently, our minds depend on the movement of our body parts, at best involving working with a variety of tools, being in dynamic places and having others nearby.

 The body’s role in thinking

Most notably, remote learning, as happens using Zoom classes, assumes that as long as the mind is engaged, it’s fine if the body stays still. But this argument is flawed.

Research has shown that the body needs to be interacting with the world of learning before the mind can become engaged.  That’s why learners working with a variety of tools and materials during a learning activity are better able to grasp abstract concepts, such as fractions, for example.

To ask learners to sit still while performing their work actually puts an unnecessary load on the mind. It requires them to concentrate on quieting their bodies, which are seeking out ways of making sense of the incoming information. This causes conflict. 

Get ready to move

Some learners will remain online for much of the rest of the academic year—due to health or other concerns—while others will return to classrooms.  Both models of school can better incorporate the body to support learning. The following tips are for educators designing remote or in-person classes, though parents and learners can also encourage and help sustain an active classroom culture. 

  1. Normalise movement during classes, not just during movement breaks. For instance, make a neighbourhood walk the mode of inquiry for the day’s science lesson. Ask learners to bring back their observations to the whole group.
  2. Begin every class with time to assemble different materials to think and work with, such as notebooks and different kinds of paper, various writing and drawing instruments, putty and blocks. Incorporate interaction with these tools throughout the lesson.
  3. Encourage and use gestures. If online, invite camera use, and back away to give students a wider view.
  4. Build in time for learners to tune in to how their body is feeling as a window into their emotional state.
  5. Provide opportunities for iteration, practicing a task in different contexts and with different tools and people that engage the body in different ways. The content or big idea stays the same, but shift how and with whom learners engage.
  6. Consider the classroom as extending out into the school grounds and neighbourhood. Allowing learners to experience a familiar location in a different way, with their classmates and teacher, can evoke new perspectives and thoughts.

Teachers, parents and learners can all change their expectations of what being “on task” looks like. Walking, running or dancing may not seem related to a particular task at hand, but these activities often help people do their best thinking.   Remember that activating the body activates the mind, so don’t mistake the motive to move.

 

Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy.  Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this  interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation. 

Image supplied by Freepik.