For this blog post, I wanted to talk about an episode from what I call my personal Bible: the Cult of Pedagogy podcast. I was listening to it in my car on the way home from school (never enough talk about education!). I love Jennifer Gonzalez and Iām currently making my way through her 263 episodes (as Iām writing this). She has experience in the classroom, and she also brings on guests to discuss a wide range of topics.
In one of her episodes from 2019, called āTo Boost Learning, Just Add Movement,ā she talks about the benefits of adding movement in the classroom not just for physical or mental health, but also to improve learning. This episode made me realize I had to write a post about the Accelerated Integrated Method (AIM). But Iām diverting from the episode. In it, she states that āthe use of gestures results in more enduring learning than learning without gestures.ā
She also shares six ways to incorporate movement in the classroom that can improve studentsā performance and help them understand and retain new vocabulary or concepts. I personally prefer listening to the episode because I can easily fit it into my driving time, but Jennifer also has a blog, and I believe there is a corresponding post for each episode. A bonus of the blog post is that she links a (or many) videos demonstrating each strategy. This is especially helpful for people who understand better when they can see someone doing it (and not because theyāre so-called āvisual learnersā; she actually starts the episode and blog post by pointing out that learning styles have been labeled a myth for a few years now)!
She explains:
- Virtual and Augmented Reality
- Total Physical Response
- Tableau/Snapshot
- Simulations
- Songs with Movement
- Brain Breaks (which have been discussed in this blog as well)
Have fun, and I hope my bible become yours too, if it wasn’t already!
