This slide deck describes the benefits of the Learning in Motion approach to address the unique learning style needs of kinesthetic learners

1. Learning in Motion
Vickie Sax

2. Curriculum Delivery
• Traditional methods
– Read textbook, lecture, take notes, worksheets
• Doesn’t match all learning styles
– Visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, read/write,
multimodal
– Assess your learning style at
http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp
• Kinesthetic learners
– Learning in Motion & Minds in Motion

3. Learning in Motion
• An imaginative way to transform lessons into
creative kinesthetic experiences
• Comes from notion that children
– Love to play
– Like to move
– Use bodies to communicate & express emotions
• Most often used in math, science, language
arts, and music

4. Science Example
• How does the earth move?
– Can you show me with your body?
– Can you turn your body around in a circle and
move across the room?
• Can you form the earth with your group?
– Use your body to show the features of earth –
clouds, trees, oceans, mountains

5. Benefits
• Benefits of physicalizing academic concepts:
– Makes learning tangible, accessible, memorable
– Cultivates critical thinking & use of higher-level
thinking skills
– Demands individual decision making and group
interaction
– Stimulates creative & dynamic energy in
classroom
Minds in Motion: A Kinesthetic Approach to
Teaching Elementary Curriculum, Susan Griss

6. Learning in Motion Can Help …
• Bridge the achievement and self-esteem gap for
students who often get lost in the process
(integration and inclusion)
• Provide every child with the same set of
opportunities - “Not every student has the same
starting line, but they all have the same finish
line”
• Manipulate the environment to put students at
ease with their learning style - students learn
best when they don’t feel overly stressed

7. Learning in Motion Aligned With …
• Robert Brooks’ philosophy
– Must design the curriculum to the customer
– Every student must be served: all learning styles,
gifted, disabled
• John Dewey’s philosophy
– Students learn best by doing
– Learning most effective when grounded in
experience

8. Assessment & Measurement
• “Not everything measured is important, and not
everything important is measured.” - Learning in
Motion is likely in the later category
• Learning in Motion likely influences the characteristics
on the Never-Ending Report Card (Dorothy Rich):
Confidence Motivation
Effort Responsibility
Initiative Perseverance
Teamwork Common sense
Problem solving Kindness
Fun Caring

9. Resources
• Minds in Motion: A Kinesthetic Approach to Teaching
Elementary Curriculum, S. Griss (1998)
• Teaching the Three Rs: Through Movement
Experiences, A.G. Gilbert (2002)
• Patriots in Motion: Exercise Index for Grades K-5,
Binghamton City School District (2011)
• Learning in Motion, California company whose goal is
to improve the nature of instruction and learning,
http://www.learn.motion.com/index.html

10. Discussion Questions
• How effective do you think this method would
be in your curriculum?
• Consider:
– Students adaptability
– Faculty preparedness
– Appropriateness to particular curricula, program
outcomes, course objectives
– Institutional acceptance