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Reference List for Inquiry Project

Inquiry Questions: How can fine arts education, specifically dancing, be integrated into mathematics instructions in a way that is meaningful and works to deepen understanding of mathematical concepts? What are the benefits of movement-based learning? References Anderson, A. (2015). Dance/movement therapy’s influence on adolescents’ mathematics, socio-emotional, and dance skills. The Education Forum, 79(3), 230-247. This article discusses how integrating dance/movement therapy into math classrooms can be beneficial for students’ wellbeing and how it is especially helpful for students with learning and behavioral disabilities. Buranich, R. (2016). Math in motion: How integrating dance and into a math classroom affects a student’s ability to learn. Senior Honors Theses, 141, 1-51. This paper describes how integrating fine arts lessons into math classrooms can be beneficial for learning both the fine art and for learning mathematics. Dimondstein, G. (1985). The place of dan...
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Entrance Slip - Inquiry Topic Possibilities

One area of education that I am interested in exploring is how movement can be used as a teaching tool. I think it is obvious that spending all day sitting can be challenging for students and can make learning more difficult. One way educators address this problem is to have breaks where students can get up and move around. However, I would like to explore ways in which movement can actually be used as a teaching tool in classrooms, specifically in mathematics. Math and dance are two things I have always been passionate about so I am very interested in exploring how the two can converge. I think bringing in movement activities related to areas students are already passionate about (sports, dance, etc.) and linking them to math concepts could also help to get students more interested in the math topics and help connect these abstract ideas to the real world. Another area of education that I think would be interesting to explore is how to teach to all the different levels of the classr...
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Entrance Slip: Embodied Learning

I think embodied learning is important in math classes if we want our students to actually understand the concepts on a deeper level. The way math is presented in school is often more as a series of steps you can follow to obtain the right answer. Without a deeper understanding of why this process worked and why this result is useful, the right answer is meaningless. I think there is some truth to the phrase "seeing is believing" in that it becomes much easier to understand something we can observe. This is why visual "proofs" can be useful even if they are not rigorous. They give us some intuition about why something is true. I think we probably use a certain amount of embodied learning without even realizing it. We use gestures when we speak, we use pictures and diagrams, we use real world examples. All these things help take math off of the page and into reality. Embodied ways of learning seem to be more natural for mathematics that is more concrete. As the mat...
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