Acting Out is Good For Math

I stumbled across this article addressing the idea that if students act out certain things in math, it helps them do better in math.  I'm not talking about the one who act's out to disrupt the class rather its a way of bringing word problems to life.

There is research indicating students who act out word problems have a better understanding than those who just read the problem.  In addition, another study stated that elementary students who acted out word problems were less distracted than those only read the problem.

Researchers think this has to do with how babies learn language.  Often, parents will hold a bear up when they talk about a bear, or point to themselves when they talk about the mother or father so the infant has a visual to go with the words.  This held up when a group of first and second graders read a story.  One group just repeated key sentences while the other group added motion using toys or themselves.  After one week, the children reread the stories and the group who played with toys had better comprehension of the story.  In addition, they did a better job of making inferences about the material.

This type of activity was repeated with older students and word problems.  The group that acted out the word problem before visualizing it mentally, did a better job of answering the question because they were less likely to be distracted by irrelevant information.

It is recommended when using this technique to answer word problems, students first read over the problem before discussing which parts seem to be relevant and which parts can be ignored.  The second step is to act out the relevant parts of the word problem either by using props, toys, or physically moving around.  Acting out the word problem, brings the material to life so the can "see" it.  This is another way of visually representing the problem.

One way to use this is to assign each group a different problem.  Assign a certain amount of time for students to determine what needs to be acted out and then let them plan how to act it out.  Once everyone is ready, let one person read the problem out and have each group  present it to the rest of the class.  Give the class a chance to work the problem out before moving on to the next group.  For older students, let them explain why they decided certain information was irrelevant to solving the problem.

Another side to acting out word problems is it gets students moving around so they are not always sitting in one place all period.  let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.