Thoughts on BME and the Effect of Activity (Physical or Group Work) on the Brain

In reflecting on the previous class's topic of Cognitivism and the upcoming topic of Constructivism or, more specifically, activity theory, I would have liked to bridge the two theories with a discussion of activity in pedagogical settings and its effect on neurological development. This is something being studied by at least one professor at Harvard who every year invites teachers from the Waldorf School of Lexington, a Montessori school, and a school that teaches the Reggio Emilia approach. This particular professor's research is in BME but she is exposing her students to methods that involve learning through activity.

One example that I would like to share is how math is initially taught in Waldorf education. Students learn to write the numbers but they also do physical movement to math. The best example is how students learn the times table. Not only do they write the times table on paper, but they recite it out loud and move in different patterns at the same time. In addition, they may throw bean bags in a specific pattern while they recite out loud. For example, I watched second graders learning their fives times table. The students lined up behind each other at five different points facing in a circle. The teacher was at one of these points. She started by throwing a bean bag to a student across from her saying 5 and moving to the back, the  student would throw it to another student and say 10 and then move to the back, and so on. They would keep going and you could see that they were in a star-shaped pattern. What was impressive was that they threw well and didn't drop the bean bag. When I saw this demonstrated, the students were familiar with it. I am sure that the first few times, there were some misses and hesitations with reciting the correct number. For each number, the students learn patterns and different physical activities that correspond to that number. You can see how the physical activity along with the writing and reciting out loud will make the knowledge "stick" better.

I am personally fascinated with BME and would like to know more about how group and/or physical activity affects how the neural networks are built in the brain as opposed to a traditional setting where a student listens to the teacher and takes notes or works out problems in a book. Perhaps there is no difference but I can't help but think that the mind is more receptive when a student is physically energized as long as it doesn't cause distraction or exhaustion.