Montana Governor and First Lady's Math and Science Initiative
The Math Movers
The Math Movers -
Dance reinforces math skills for Arlee students
By Karen A. Kaufmann,
Associate Professor of Dance -
The University of Montana
The Arlee School District's Life Long Learning Center received an arts education Special Project Grant from the Montana Arts Council to partner with the dance program at The University of Montana. Karen A. Kaufmann, associate professor of dance, is mentoring one senior dance student in the department and a graduate of the dance program to work collaboratively with Arlee students in grades 3-6 in an after-school dance and math program called "Math Movers."
Each "Math Movers" class begins with a short written math quiz, which assesses students' knowledge about particular areas of the math curriculum. A 50-minute creative movement lesson follows, focused around that math concept. The class ends with students taking the same test again, allowing the teaching artists and Arlee classroom teachers to measure students' learning.
For example, one class focused on geometric shapes. Math and movement vocabulary included: circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, hexagons, trapezoids and rhombus, polygon, area, perimeter, pattern, tangram and perimeter.
After a full-body movement warm-up, children were asked to make shapes with their bodies and connect those shapes with others. They hopped, skipped, jumped, galloped and tiptoed over to a shape taped on the floor and lay on the perimeter or the area of the shape.
Students danced with cutout shapes and created their own movement/shape patterns on the floor. This led to movement combinations as the students danced the shape patterns.
In addition to moving, students were asked to name the shape aloud and discuss the whether their bodies were on the area or perimeter. Students then created tangrams – dividing the larger shapes into smaller shapes.
After the movement class, the students' quizzes demonstrated immediate learning by a large percentage of the students. Statistics for these classes are being compiled for assessment purposes.
Using the elements of movement and choreography the students created, performed and responded to mathematics content using dance. According to Arlee teacher Carrie Drye, who helped supervise the program, "The most successful part of Math Movers was the mixture of math and movement. I know there are three or four of these kids who are intimidated by math. The movement made it less threatening and the kids loved it. This was a very successful program."
Throughout the six-week session (from Feb. 6-March 15) students increased their abilities in geometry, number value, telling time, fractions, multiplication, lines and angles and place value, while also addressing the Montana Standards for Arts specific to dance.
Math CRT scores will be examined to determine whether there are any differences between participating students' skills and the skills developed by non-participating students at the same grade levels. There is also an observation checklist of creative movement skills to assess information on students' use of dance as a form of creative expression.
The "Math Movers" program has far exceeded expectations by Arlee teachers. Students talk about the program and practice it spontaneously in the classroom in-between the Tuesday and Thursday sessions and it has a reputation as a fun after-school program.
It is hoped that this innovative six-week pilot project will lead to a more comprehensive arts program in the future, using creative movement and dance to reinforce the curriculum.
For more information, email karen.kaufmann@umontana.edu or call 406-243-2870.
