To Each its Own: Targeting My Professional Development Workshops

In the last couple months I've had whole bunches of fun presenting professional development workshops in a variety of settings, to a variety of people.  Let's see...math teachers from all over the U.S., PE teachers from across Indiana, classroom teachers from Indianapolis, fellow Teaching Artists from a variety of disciplines, and arts education administrators from Young Audiences affiliates from around the country. 

Each session bore the title 'Math in Your Feet' and was a combination of big picture information and hands-on experience, but that is where the similarity ended and my job got really interesting!

For the classroom teachers I started by focusing on the challenges of using movement in a classroom setting.  As they started to move and experiment with foot-based percussive patterns they became more comfortable and sure in their own movement.  This approach usually leads to a greater willingness to embrace, sometimes for the first time, the possibility of leading their own students in movement-based learning.  To some extent I am also encouraging them to have fun with math, many for the first time.  I consider the 'doing and making' of percussive dance patterns in this program the same as the 'doing and making' of math so, in every teacher workshop I do, I walk them step by step through the intersection where math and dance meet.  We're so used to focusing on the symbolic, static realm of mathematics that we don't always recognize when we see math happening in front of our eyes.  It helps to have a guide.

For the self-identified math teachers at the NCTM annual meeting I also started with a message of 'anyone can lead movement in the classroom and here are some tools' but then quickly moved toward 'here is an opportunity for your students to represent their math understanding in a new way within the kinesthetic realm'.  I also drew their attention to the fact that the processes of solving a problem in both math and dance (choreography) are often similar -- question, understand what tools it might take to answer the question, experiment with ideas, use your resources, find an answer that seems to work, evaluate and then ask more questions. 

The group of 80 or so PE teachers was a new one for me simply because there was not one bit of trepidation or reluctance to get up and move!  Not all of them were comfortable with the idea of dance, at least initially, but they were definitely game.  I was only with them for about an hour, and I couldn't go very deep, so I stuck with active modeling of the bridge between my particular brand of movement with an academic content area.  If I had had more time with them, I would have focused on the  process for moving the dance to the page -- speaking the words that describe aspects of our movement as we move, writing those words down, turning these words into symbols, and graphing foot positions on a coordinate grid.  I did the point that Math in Your Feet can be a collaboration between classroom and specials teachers, just like it is when I lead my residency.  The concrete movement and math activities can be done in PE or music class which then build the bridge to the formal, written, symbolic realm of math back in the regular classroom.

At their conference the arts education administrators were focusing on how to add the A in arts to STEM topics (STEM to STEAM).  I gave a general overview of the program and laid out my process for building the program and integrating the dance with the math.  The most important issue for me is that when you are thinking about integrating any art form with another content area you really need to be honest with yourself and ask 'is it a good fit?'  If the answer is no then it is not worth forcing the issue.  If you think 'maybe' then do a little more work to explore the connections.  In the end, though, the connections need to be more than skin deep.  Just because we count our beats in this program doesn't mean I consider that a good example of what math and dance have in common.  I also gave a similar account of how I combined math and dance to my fellow Teaching Artists.

My favorite moments while teaching teachers are when they ask me questions that show me they are imagining how they will do this work with their own students.  It's similar to house hunting, I suppose.  The minute you start imagining where you're going to put your furniture the realtor knows you might really be serious!  I love hearing all the different ways engaged and caring education professionals imagine tailoring my ideas for their own particular learning environments. 

The Importance of 'Doing' Math: A Conversation with Maria

Maria Droujkova, from Natural Math, read and commented on my recently published article about the development and use of Jump Patterns in the classroom.  Here are some excerpts from an interesting exchange we had today on the Natural Math forum based on her questions after reading the article:

Maria: Great article, Malke - thanks for sharing! I loved the photos, and especially the cool graphic organizers and visuals you use. Do kids like to use the charts? Does it depend on the person?

Malke: What plays out again and again in this program is that teachers are really surprised when they see how enthusiastic their students are when it comes to writing about their experiences in Math in Your Feet.  Recording their patterns using the one best word to describe each category of each beat *is* challenging, but they are motivated toward accuracy because it is *their* pattern.  Also, it usually plays out that within each team of two, one person is more comfortable in the 2D realm of the page than the other, and one is more comfortable moving than the other -- it's a team effort, which makes it more comfortable for everyone. Once the kids do the tough work to record their pattern using the descriptive words, it's actually quite easy for them to plot their feet on the simple grid.  I still think there is a better, maybe more mathematically accurate way to do this, I just don't know what it is yet! 

There are, however, whole groups of kids who still just need the physical portion of the program (more and more, sadly).  These are kids who never had a chance to develop spatial reasoning in preschool, for instance. They don't have enough math, even in 4th or 5th grade, to use the program to take them further -- I find that they begin to understand the math concepts as if it's the *first* time they've ever seen or heard about them.  In these cases, I require just the minimum in their workbooks, and I purposefully stay in the physical realm.  It may be the only time they will ever have to just 'play' with math.

Maria:  Mathematics is "embodied" in that its grounding, basic metaphors come from bodily experiences and observations. You can't skip over that and go into formal math. Even working with adults, I find that you need to go through folding, building, mirroring, measuring and other physical activities and/or stories if math does not make sense to them.

Malke:  This is great to hear, and I believe it wholeheartedly based on what I see kids do in my program and in my personal math (re)learning...I just gave a very well attended 90 minute hands-on presentation at the NCTM [National Council of Teachers of Mathematics] annual meeting and it was surprising how many of these adults were really quite challenged.  It has nothing to do with being 'good' at dancing and everything to do with not having enough experience working with and within a physical realm.  I attended a session on the van Hiele Levels [for developing geometric thought] and realized that this probably applies to adults as well -- experience is key to understanding.

What is interesting to me is that my 'hunch' eight years ago, that there might be math in what I did as a percussive dancer, is now more true than I initially imagined.  At that point in my life I believed, as most of us probably do, that math is primarily symbolic.  I realize now that the math I bring to children in the form of rhythm and dance is some of the experiential math they may not have ever had, and that they need this kind of experience to move forward.  I've heard that only 10% of us will understand the symbolic realm of mathematics without needing to first have, as Maria says, "...bodily experiences and observations".  Just this fact alone makes DOING hands-on, experiential math that much more of an imperative.

Here's the link to our full conversation on the Natural Math forum.

Yoda Says Do (Embodied Aphorisms)

I wrote recently about a phrase that popped into my head one morning.   I was thinking about how to explain my five year old on her best days.  The words that popped up into my head were "fearlessly creative."  And then I thought, what does that mean? 

Well, the most important thing that it means is that when you are fearlessly creative you DO no matter what.  The doing doesn't have to be Art with a capital A, but a lot of times it has to do with making something.  So, you just DO.  Even if doesn't turn out exactly the way you planned.  Even if it's not perfect (whatever that is).  Even if it amounts to nothing.  Even if it just leads you to the next question or the next idea. 

In the process of mulling over this idea, a classic aphorism popped into my head:

You never know until you try.

And then I wondered what other words of wisdom speak to the doing, so I asked my Facebook friends and here's what they came up with:

Practice makes permanent.
Nothing ventured nothing gained.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Failure is always an option. (Myth Busters)
"Play your own special music, play your own special song; play your own kind of music, even if nobody plays along..."  (Mama Cass)
Do, or not do.  There is no try. (Yoda)
Just do it. (Nike)

When I look at this list I see Math in Your Feet.  And, I think the program embodies almost every saying there:

Practice makes permanent.  Kids practice and practice and practice.  It's part of the process.  And then, lo!  They remember and they understand! 

Nothing ventured nothing gained.  You just gotta get going.  Move your feet.  Even though getting started is sometimes the hardest bit.  The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.  Literally.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  Kids play with math for possibly the first time in their lives. 

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  Trying is like practice, you just do it and see how much further you can get with each try.  If it's not working, then try something else!

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  Yes, we perspire in Math in Your Feet.  I would expect nothing less!

Failure is always an option.  You know, I don't really require the kids to be good dancers, or even good at math.  I just require they be present and put in the effort.  Plus, in my experience, I've learned more from failure than from doing something exactly right.

I'm thinking I might make these aphorisms part of the residency reflection and wrap up.  Wouldn't that be cool?  "Okay kids, have you ever heard the saying 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again'?  Yes?  Well, give me one example of how it relates to your experience in Math in Your Feet this week."

We'll create a whole new assessment trend:  Aphoristic Assessment.  It's at least worth a try.  I'll let you know how it goes!