Hand waving: Not just for briefings anymore
Hand waving boosts mathematics learning NewScientist.com news service
Gestures can boost children's ability to complete problems in mathematics: The study used grade school children and three types of presentation: Group 1: Oral instructions alone. Group 2: with gestures that “copied” the oral instructions. Group 3: gestures that “complemented” the oral instructions.
The task called for solving simple equations in which one term was represented by a question mark. The oral instructions mentioned each term. The “copy” gestures apparently pointed to the terms as they were mentioned. The “complimentary” gestures, for example, signaled subtraction by a scooping motion.
Order of performance: 3, 2, 1. The work also suggested that that students who copy the gestures of their teachers are more likely to learn. Work by Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago. Presented at the 2006 AAS annual meeting .
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We have long known that engineers need a lot of hand waving to brief on a project. Here we see evidence that gestures contribute to teaching. And this is obviously an example of that Vulcan creativity I mentioned before. We know that gestures contribute to communication. Once you consider that teaching is a subset of communication, you are bound to expect that gestures will contribute to teaching.
You might also suspect that “complimentary” gestures would make a greater contribution than “copy” gestures, although I am not sure that it is easy to know what the appropriate complimentary gesture is. Gestures that copy, I assume, are redundant. That is, they carry no information not in the spoken instruction. The “complimentary’ gesture mentioned as an example appears to be a visual analogy. The scooping motion would remind the students of a concrete counterpart to the abstract minus sign or the abstract word subtract.
The study also suggested that students who copy the teacher’s gestures are more likely to learn. One of the main themes of the Thinkerer is that you want to get your whole brain behind you. The more brain modules you get on the job, the better service you are likely to get out of your brain. Imitating the teacher’s gestures calls on the brain modules that control movement.
Having the children imitate gestures sounds like a better idea than saying “Sit still and don’t fidget.” My guess is that fidgeting is a symptom to indicate that the movement parts of the brain are not getting enough job-related work.
Maybe Market. Entrepreneurial alert. Gestures are familiar to people who work in the theater, cartoons (moving and still), comic books, and pantomime. They may even be familiar to some psychologists other than Susan Goldin-Meadow. Present technology allows low-cost preparation and distribution of video clips. Someone who knows a little bit about video production could make instructional video clips that use gestures to augment instruction. Such clips might be marketed for teacher training, for classroom use, or for assistance the parents.
Perhaps some parent who sees homework as a problem will figure out how to do this. And so demonstrate again that “Every problem is an opportunity being mismanaged.
Gestures can boost children's ability to complete problems in mathematics: The study used grade school children and three types of presentation: Group 1: Oral instructions alone. Group 2: with gestures that “copied” the oral instructions. Group 3: gestures that “complemented” the oral instructions.
The task called for solving simple equations in which one term was represented by a question mark. The oral instructions mentioned each term. The “copy” gestures apparently pointed to the terms as they were mentioned. The “complimentary” gestures, for example, signaled subtraction by a scooping motion.
Order of performance: 3, 2, 1. The work also suggested that that students who copy the gestures of their teachers are more likely to learn. Work by Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago. Presented at the 2006 AAS annual meeting .
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We have long known that engineers need a lot of hand waving to brief on a project. Here we see evidence that gestures contribute to teaching. And this is obviously an example of that Vulcan creativity I mentioned before. We know that gestures contribute to communication. Once you consider that teaching is a subset of communication, you are bound to expect that gestures will contribute to teaching.
You might also suspect that “complimentary” gestures would make a greater contribution than “copy” gestures, although I am not sure that it is easy to know what the appropriate complimentary gesture is. Gestures that copy, I assume, are redundant. That is, they carry no information not in the spoken instruction. The “complimentary’ gesture mentioned as an example appears to be a visual analogy. The scooping motion would remind the students of a concrete counterpart to the abstract minus sign or the abstract word subtract.
The study also suggested that students who copy the teacher’s gestures are more likely to learn. One of the main themes of the Thinkerer is that you want to get your whole brain behind you. The more brain modules you get on the job, the better service you are likely to get out of your brain. Imitating the teacher’s gestures calls on the brain modules that control movement.
Having the children imitate gestures sounds like a better idea than saying “Sit still and don’t fidget.” My guess is that fidgeting is a symptom to indicate that the movement parts of the brain are not getting enough job-related work.
Maybe Market. Entrepreneurial alert. Gestures are familiar to people who work in the theater, cartoons (moving and still), comic books, and pantomime. They may even be familiar to some psychologists other than Susan Goldin-Meadow. Present technology allows low-cost preparation and distribution of video clips. Someone who knows a little bit about video production could make instructional video clips that use gestures to augment instruction. Such clips might be marketed for teacher training, for classroom use, or for assistance the parents.
Perhaps some parent who sees homework as a problem will figure out how to do this. And so demonstrate again that “Every problem is an opportunity being mismanaged.
posted by Selby Evans at 12:46 PM
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