Hand Gestures Dramatically Improve Learning

[Guest guest]

(I have noticed this w/Danny, too…if he learns the

sign for a word when learning to read it, he seems to be able to remember the

word much better than if he just tries to read it without using the sign)

KathyR (mom to Danny 9 on the 31st! and his 6 older sibs)

Source:

University

of Rochester

Date:

July 28, 2007

Hand Gestures Dramatically Improve Learning

Science Daily —

Kids asked to physically gesture at math problems are nearly three times more

likely than non-gesturers to remember what they've learned. In today's issue of

the journal Cognition, a University of Rochester scientist suggests it's

possible to help children learn difficult concepts by providing gestures as an

additional and potent avenue for taking in information.

Wagner Cook has

shown that using hand gestures while learning a new concept dramatically

improves the ability to retain that concept. (Credit: Baker, University

of Rochester)

" We've known for a while that we use gestures to add information to a

conversation even when we're not entirely clear how that information relates to

what we're saying, " says Wagner Cook, lead author and postdoctoral

fellow at the University. " We asked if the reverse could be true; if

actively employing gestures when learning helps retain new information. "

It turned out to have a more dramatic effect than Cook expected. In her

study, 90 percent of students who had learned algebraic concepts using gestures

remembered them three weeks later. Only 33 percent of speech-only students who

had learned the concept during instruction later retained the lesson. And

perhaps most astonishing of all, 90 percent of students who had learned by

gesture alone--no speech at all--recalled what they'd been taught.

Cook used a variation on a classic gesturing experiment. When third graders

approach a two-sided algebra equation, such as " 9+3+6=__+6 " on a

blackboard, they will likely try to solve it in the simple way they have always

approached math problems. They tend to think in terms of " the equal sign

means put the answer here, " rather than thinking that the equal sign

divides the problem into two halves. As a result, children often completely

ignore the final " +6. "

However, even when children discard that final integer, they will often

point to it momentarily as they explain how they attacked the problem. Those

children who gestured to the number, even though they may seem to ignore it,

are demonstrating that they have a piece of information they can't reconcile.

Previous work has shown that the children with that extra bit of disconnected

knowledge are the ones ready to learn, which suggests that perhaps giving

children extra information in their gesture could lead to their learning.

Cook divided 84 third and fourth graders into three groups. One group

expressed the concept verbally without being allowed to use gestures. The

second group was allowed to use only gestures and no speech, and the third

group employed both. Teachers gave all the children the same instruction, which

used both speech and gesture.

After three weeks, the children were given regular in-school math tests. Of

those children who had learned to solve the problem correctly, only a third of

the speech-only students remembered the principles involved, but that figure

rose dramatically for the speech-and-gesture, and the gesture-only group, to

90-percent retention.

" My intuition is that gestures enhance learning because they capitalize

on our experience acting in the world, " says Cook. " We have a lot of

experience learning through interacting with our environment as we grow, and my

guess is that gesturing taps into that need to experience. "

Cook plans to look into how gesturing could be implemented effectively in

classrooms to make a noticeable improvement in children's learning.

" Gesturing does have one clear benefit, " Cook adds. " It's

free. "

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by

University of Rochester.