Research

It is widely known that combining physical activity with academic materials poses many benefits for children, especially those in primary schools; not only does it encourage physical activity, but also fosters increased engagement from students. In fact, educationalists including John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and Alfred North Whitehead have argued for physical movement as an effective method of learning; mathematician William Thurston’s belief that spatial imagery expands thought was later confirmed by dancer and researcher Aby Watson’s 2005 work that studied the applications of dance-induced bodily experiences. Additionally, the research of Professor Tom Cooper and Dr. Christopher Mathews suggests that teaching math through dance connects abstract concepts with tangible experiences.1) As authors of Math Dance Erik Stern and Karl Schaffer asserted, “choreographic and mathematical thinking are composed of similar building blocks.”2) The widely used mathematical reasoning processes of pattern detection or guess and check, for instance, also apply in dance performances as dancers memorize repeated movements and approximate how far each movement travels across the floor. Hence, dance, when utilized effectively, can thus help concretize and expand such thinking processes in students. 

 

More specifically, when geared towards children in the first three grades of elementary school, mathematical themes such as arithmetics, geometric shapes, and coordination have intimate connections to dance. In arithmetics, for example, Sandra Minton, a professor and dance teacher at University of Northern Colorado,  notes that, since the mathematical field involves “order and reordering objects and performing operations on them,”  concepts such as “putting together” (addition) or “taking apart” (subtraction) may deem clearer in childrens’ minds as objects and gross-motor actions substitute abstract symbols.3) Applying these studies, Movematics uses simple dance movements along the number lines for enhanced comprehension of the four basic operators. 

 

Additionally, the geometric use of space can be illustrated effectively through movements. As executed in the learning videos, by allowing children to first explore different formations, directions, and pathways with locomotor (traveling) and non-locomotor (in-place) actions and later use such moves to trace various geometric shapes, the students are able to better detect distinct characteristics of such shapes – the number of angles, sides, type of pathways (curvy or straight) – as they analyze their own bodily movements instead of a paper diagram. Moreover, when it comes to three-dimensional shapes, the exercise of forming them with their own bodies, albeit incompletely, aids the visualization process crucial to future advanced concepts of rotation or finding the volume.4) 

 

For older students, dance also aids the understanding of the cartesian coordinate system. Through dance, students are encouraged to consider the relationship of their body to the space surrounding them, allowing them to develop a greater sense of spatial awareness. For instance, understanding of coordinates and spatial relations can be developed in the process of  incorporating symmetry in creating dance routines.5) Throughout the videos, Movematics encourages students to perform the symmetrical patterns through movements. 

In all, the benefits of incorporating dance into mathematical learning is clear. In a study by LaShandria L. Redman, the engagement level of students who learned math through dance increased over time, and their responses were largely positive. In a final interview, one student noted that such a way of learning “gets us moving,” while another commented that using dance helped them “get inspired and learn different [concepts].”6) While there are existing programs that utilize dance to teach math, such as Math and Movement, these programs are not accessible in an online format and often only offered as separate in-person workshops.  Through this website, I hope to help more students enjoy the benefits of dance-based mathematical learning and offer a more systemized and connected  curriculum that covers fundamental mathematical topics, from the number system to basic geometry.