Teachers Forced To Compete With Excitement Of Video Games

It's an age-old theory that children learn best through experience.  One instructor would tell you the problem is, that no one is showing teachers how to teach that way. She says competing with the excitement of TV and video games, means the classroom needs to be more dynamic.   It’s a problem many teachers will face as kids return to the classroom next week.


A recent workshop for Upstate teachers was held at Mountain View Elementary in Greenville County. It’s sponsored by the Peace Center’s education outreach program. Teachers are learning how to use movement and music to teach math.


"Actually, it's pretty fun” says fourth grader Megan Miller as she does a line dance that does more than help students memorize. Miller says, "You are doing patterns. You aren't just doing multiplication tables out of the math book. You are actually doing moves and rhythm."


The concept of “movement and math” uses art, storytelling, pictures, dance and movement with an emphasis on artistic creativity.

Instructor Marcia Daft says, "Children do not naturally learn, sitting through their desks, quietly.  Children are natural movers. They love to talk. They love to socialize. They love to explain their thinking.  It's not just the procedures, you know, two plus three equals six memorization. It's more using their bodies to figure it out.  Instruction in Mathematics is fairly weak in the United States, and so finally people are waking up to the fact that children do not learn the way we are expecting them to learn, and so they are looking for other ways to teach children Mathematics."
 
 More details about the program, courtesy of Ellen Westkaemper, VP Education, The Peace Center:
 
That is a strong connection between music and math (fractions/notes), but this is not the focus of Marcia’s work. Her work is much broader than that.
 
Her work connects rhythm in music to patterns in math; patterns and groupings are the basis of all math, and therefore a solid understanding of patterns forms a foundation for addition/subtraction, multiplication/division, fractions, ratios, algebra.
 
For example, (this is a super summary…)
 
ABABABAB can be looked at as 8 beats; or it can be 2+2+2+2=8; or it can be 4 x 2=8
 
ABBABBABB can be looked at as 9 beats; or it can be 3+3+3=9; or it can be 3 x 3=9; or it can be 3 x (1+2) = 9
 
The pattern unit of ABB can also be looked at as a ratio (1:2) or fractions (1/3; 2/3)
 
Patterns exist visually/spatially. They can also be understood kinesthetically, through rhythmic movement. These strategies Marcia brings involve students “playing patterns” physically in a way that the teacher is manipulating; and then reflecting on the experience and making these connections to math.  It’s very inquiry based and its facilitation teaches to every learning modality we’re aware of.
 
Marcia Daft leads rhythm based lessons that teach math concepts including patterns, number systems, addition, multiplication, fractions and more. Her approach is inquiry based and also supports new South Carolina math standards in “systematic reasoning,” which ask students to explain their math understandings in a variety of ways. For many teachers, this work provides exactly the tools they are looking for to teach math through multiple intelligences, and differentiate instruction to connect with all levels of learners.
  
MARCIA DAFT is known for creating original instructional methods for teaching music as well as integrating music and movement into other areas of the curriculum. Her work has been used in classrooms throughout the U. S. for fifteen years. Ms. Daft is a national workshop leader for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a Master Artist with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, and a consultant for arts institutions throughout the U.S. She has developed museum exhibitions, broadcast programs, and educational programs for the Smithsonian Institution. She has also written over twenty children's educational books for both the Smithsonian Institution and the National Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Daft holds a Bachelors Degree in engineering from Duke University and a Masters Degree in music from the University of Chicago.
 
 
Peace Center Teacher Resources: http://www.peacecenter.org./teacherworkshops.asp