Topic > Logical Foundation of Kinesthetic Learning - 1552

Logical Garden of Kinesthetic Learning “I hear and I forget; I see and remember; I do it and I will understand it." -Confucius No matter what you call it – dance, creative movement, kinesthetic learning, creative dance, or dance-based learning – it benefits all students when incorporated into the classroom. Movement is the key. Creative movement is a form of dance, so students use and introduce the basic elements of dance: body, energy, space and time. According to Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, Ph.D., psychoanalyst at the University of California, Berkeley, “Creative movement is a joyful way for children to explore movement through music, develop physical skills, channel energy, stimulate imagination and promote creativity. Again, all students participate in one way or another when movement is incorporated into the classroom. But it doesn't end here. Dance is omnipresent, found all over the world. Because dance involves all students, it can also incorporate the different cultures celebrated at school. Every year a new population of students comes into the classroom and I never know what types of students will be in our classroom, especially in kindergarten. They could be a range of students from different cultures or who speak different languages. The creative movement enhances and brings knowledge to students of cultures around the world. Presenting dance from different cultures is a must. One way to achieve this is through movement and story. An example explained in the article "The Power of Creative Dance" teaches dance stories. This is an effective way to choose multicultural books, poems or songs to show images of different cultures by creating dance movements based on these stories, poems or songs. Including multicultural dance in the curriculum also provides an excellent opportunity to invite professional artists to share their expertise with children" (Griss, 1994, p.79). Connie Bergstein Dow suggests selecting five to seven images that might elicit movement from a particular song or book. This could be an image of a character or scene. The students then create movements to bring the character, scene or story to life voice and, after reading, the students take up their image and practice while the music plays and the dance cues called, the students, as a group, bring the image to life. At the conclusion of the dance movements, the students freeze and they maintain their shape or sculpture.Then they gather and discuss their experience (Dow, 2010, p.35). , think critically about story concepts, collaborate, and most importantly, create. It appears that students are using and acquiring 21st century skills. Can common core state standards and 21st century skills be taught through movement? The answer is a definitive "yes". A 21st century classroom aims to create a student-centered, project-based environment that focuses on creating lifelong learners.