For this week’s activity, I decided to try out using my body as a calculator like in Constant motion. I also made my partner do it with me because he is a physical and health educator and practices many martial arts since childhood. In case you do not know, there is a part of martial art where the learner has to learn to reproduce a sequence of movements called kata in karate or form in kung-fu. For me, it was a very difficult activity. I do not have a good memory to remember a sequence of movements, thus associating a number to a movement is very difficult for me. For my partner, it was easy and he was able to use his body as a calculator very well. Learning a sequence of movements has always been easy for him and is now a strength for him after practicing it so much in martial arts.
After the activity I asked him what his thoughts were about it and if he would have enjoyed it as a child. He told me that he would have enjoyed it very much and would definitely deepen his learning because for him, learning with the body makes sense. He also said that after a while, he would not have to do the movements, but could visualize his body doing the addition/subtraction in his mind. Lastly, he also said that he would have liked the physical activity because he was not very good at sitting down and doing exercises. I immediately connected with Stern & Schaffer’s () video when they mentioned that physical activity is an opportunity. For many students, learning is not happening when they are sitting down. Thus, asking them to move is a powerful opportunity for them to learn in the classroom. Learning can happen in other situations than sitting down at a desk.
For me, I think that after a lot of practice, I would be able to remember the movement well and use my body as a calculator. I am just a slower learner when it comes to choreography. Although I struggle with learning choreography, it does not mean I do not have a good muscle memory. I can still remember my floor routine choreography from when I did gymnastics about 20 years ago. Like Stern & Schaffer () mentioned in Math Dance, embodying is memorable. Thus, using the body to learn mathematical concepts can help knowledge retention.
I am not sure how I could connect this to my curriculum precisely, but I have some vague ideas. Katelyn had a great one last week with using body movements to represent the unit circle and periodic function. I think I could find some movements to represent exponential/logarithmic expressions that we often use. We could potentially also associate some properties of exponents/logarithms to those movements. Also, I would love to find a way for my students to use their body to complete operations with polynomials. There is so much to remember in this chapter, I think that relying on muscle memory could alleviate knowledge retention. I only have ideas and no concrete choreography so far, but being creative with movements is hard for me, so it might take me some time before I come up with a concrete idea.
Reference
Stern, E. & Schaffer, K. (2012, November 18th). Math dance. [TEDxManhattanBeach]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws2y-cGoWqQ
I really enjoyed reading your reflection, especially how you compared your experience with your partner’s. It shows so clearly that embodied learning feels different for everyone depending on our movement histories. His comment about eventually visualizing the choreography connects beautifully with Stern & Schaffer’s idea that once movement is learned, it becomes a mental structure students can think with.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated your insight about remembering your gymnastics routine from years ago, it’s such a perfect example of how embodied experiences can stick with us long‑term. Even if choreography feels challenging now, your experience actually supports the idea that “embodying is memorable.”
Noemi - I was intrigued by your partner’s description of visualizing the body in those positions. That is a great example of how the embodiment can be called upon in the future even if not acted out but visualized. It shows how embodiment can embed learning and become a grounding metaphor.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea about using movements for exponential and logarithmic functions. I wonder how we could have students represent these in their bodies that would deepen their understanding of the connections and inverse relationship between the two functions. I will be thinking about this and let you know if I come up with any further thoughts!