Week One - Part One (Assigned Reading)
Gesturing Gives Children New Ideas About Math - Goldin-Meadow et al. (2009)
Researchers studied how hand gestures helped children learn. Participants were 81 girls and 47 boys in third and fourth grade who did not answer any of the six pretest questions, of the form 2 + 5 + 10 = ____ + 10, correctly. Pretest gestures were coded. Next, children were randomly assigned to three groups in which experimenters demonstrated different levels of gesturing while modeling problem solving (no gesturing, partially correct gesturing, and correct gesturing). Finally, during the lesson, without gesturing experimenters answered a question and verbalized their reasoning. Then all children were asked to solve a problem while gesturing and verbalizing. This alternated for 12 total questions followed by a six question post test.
Results showed that all children who were shown gestures during the pre-lesson gestured for all lesson and post test questions. Children with the most correct gestures answered the most questions correctly.
My first stop was when researchers described their mediator variable, aside from their independent and dependent variables. I had not heard of such a variable before. “Adding grouping in speech” was their mediator variable saying it predicts the dependent variable, post test performance.. See the image below. Students who combined speech with the V gesturing performed the best.
(Image: Ingmire, J. (2014, March 10). Gesturing with hands is a powerful tool for children’s math learning. University of Chicago News. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/gesturing-hands-powerful-tool-childrens-math-learning)
Another key takeaway for me was that neither students nor experimenters used speech for the V grouping gesturing. It was not until the post test did some students start speaking about grouping two numbers to maintain equivalency. Gesturing appears to help students gain and verbalize understanding.
The positive effects of gesturing combined with this week’s introductory reading promotes the question, to what extent could gestures be meaningful in higher levels of math education and how would they be viewed by students, parents, teachers, and society? For instance the introductory reading states society views manipulatives as babyish and primitive if used for higher math. It further states students of higher math are expected to “just think” their way through learning and understanding while remaining still and silent. It now seems contradictory to not allow gesturing, if gesturing promotes thinking and we want students to “just think” their way through higher level math.
Hi Shawn,
ReplyDeleteNice choice in blog name!
It sounds like the study you read had some interesting information for us to consider as mathematics teachers. You brought forward an important part about societies view on gesturing and specifically, how could this idea be integrated in intermediate and high-school classes. As I teach Grade 2, integrating gestures seems to be an idea I can understand and already think of ways to try it out. However, in my opinion, this gets more challenging as the content in which students are needing to learn becomes more challenging. In a typical classroom I often see a large range in mathematics levels. I wonder if gesturing provides an entry point for all learners or is it based on learners already having some knowledge on the topic.
Hi Shawn,
ReplyDeleteI had the same question, how can we integrate gesturing (and grounding methods) into higher level mathematics. While I don't have the specific article, I remember reading a study on the positive effects of tracing. The study varied on types of tracing (on the desk and in the air towards the board) and the results were similar to the study you read about. As you mentioned, it seems contradictory to not allow these learning tools for students of all ages. But how can we involve these types of learning when it comes to higher level math?