A self-regulated movement-based strategy for learning

The main step is determining what you want them to know. Identify what the main topic is and what content you are teaching through this strategy. There is no membership required or app to subscribe to for this.

• Develop a clear list of ‘important’ words or phrases, separated into bullet points
  • This could be a document given to each student or a PowerPoint where the words appear when you want them to appear. 
  • If one of those words has several steps/things to understand, make those separate too. The more you break down the concept, the better they will understand, remember, and be able to explain.
• Consider an example pose or movement for the first word or phrase that you can use to model the process for your students before turning it over to them.
• This is all you SHOULD do...the rest is student-directed.

• Step one is explaining the process of what you want them to do. ‘These are the important terms and as a class you’ll be creating the movements that stand for each term’.
• Step two is (possibly) providing them with an example for clarity of understanding.
• Step 3 is introducing 2-5 words (bullet points) at a time. A basic conversation should take place about what those words mean so they can incorporate their understanding into the movement.
• Step 4 is having them stand up and provide ideas for the physical movement to go with each word. They must agree with each other so that all students are making the same movements.
• Step 5 is adding additional words (2-5 at a time) and repeating step 4.  It is important to note that they must practice ALL the words each time. This builds on repetition, memorization, and metacognition.
  • Alternatively, you could assign small groups each 2-4 words that they develop poses or movements for. Then after ample time, each group presents and justifies their movements as they teach the class. By the end of the small group presentations, they all now have the full sequence and everyone contributed.

• Informal assessment as they are working through the movements
• A pre-test and a post-test if you’re looking for a more formal assessment to quantify how much their movements have reinforced the learning of the content.

The inclusion of movement into classroom settings has been shown to benefit students’ memory (Mavilidi et al., 2022). Specifically, when the movement is related to the content being learned, the effect was highest. In the self-regulated movement strategy presented here, integrating activities that encourage students to go beyond just thinking about concepts is key. Metacognition is when students are taught to be aware of their own thought process; in this case, the teacher is directing them to think about the words and phrases and consider what associations they have or personal connections that can be used to create poses and movements. Using these types of activities can help students become more aware of their own learning process as they are provided opportunities to reflect on how they are thinking about the topic (Duman & Semerci, 2019).

References 

Duman, B., & Semerci, Ç. (2019). The effect of a metacognition-based instructional practice on the metacognitive awareness of the prospective teachers. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 7(3), 720–728. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.070311

Mavilidi, M., Pesce, C., Benzing, V., Schmidt, M., Paas, F., Okely, A. D., & Vazou, S. (2022). Meta-analysis of movement-based interventions to aid academic and behavioral outcomes: A taxonomy of relevance and integration. Educational Research Review, 37(online), 100478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2022.100478

Other Resources:

Dignath, C. (2021). For unto every one that hath shall be given: teachers’ competence profiles regarding the promotion of self-regulated learning moderate the effectiveness of short-term teacher training. In Metacognition and Learning (Issue 0123456789). Springer US.

Ortube, A.F., Panadero, E. & Dignath, C. (2024). Self-Regulated learning interventions for pre-service teachers: A Systematic Review. Educational Psychology Review 36, 113. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09919-5