The University of Florida offers a master's program for licensed teachers called "Literacy and the Arts." The program allows teachers to explore the different ways in which the Arts can be utilized in the traditional classroom. I reached out to Dr. Jane Townsend, a professor in the program, to discuss my research. She suggested I have a look at Moving Ideas: Multimodality and Embodied Learning in Communities and Schools, a series of essays compiled and edited by Mira-Lisa Katz.
What's the story?
The essays provide personal accounts from educators striving to create multimodal teaching practices, generally within traditional classrooms. Nearly all spoke of the marked difference between the classroom and "real world," meaning the expectation that at school, kids will mostly sit in desks and outside of the classroom engage in sports, the Arts, and play. Each essayist brought their particular background in movement to their practice and used it to inform their teaching. All recognized that what works for them as learners in a classroom may not work for all students. They value multimodality in the classroom and encourage their students to explore content in different ways.
In her essay "Chroma Harmonia," teacher Catherine Kroll discusses her exploration of motor learning in her English classroom, using mirror neuron theory as a basis for her practice.
Mirror neuron theory suggests that the traditional model of learning - commonly believed to consist of the separate stages of visual observation followed by imitation ... - should be replaced by the understanding that learning takes place in a combined visual-motor neural sensing that precedes concept-formation, linguistic mediation, and imitation. We learn through grasping intentions, not analyzing actions into pieces and then imitating them, (pp. 48 - 49).
Is it useful?
Moving Ideas: Multimodality and Embodied Learning in Communities and Schools provides a solid framework for how educators working in different fields can use multimodal teaching to improve student learning. I found it useful when an essayist would include scientific theory to back up their anecdotal findings. I am discovering this is the problem with a lot of the motor learning work I have found - much of the evidence is anecdotal. I hope to find a few more texts that support these findings with scientific research. As we can see from my brief research thus far, movement has a positive effect on student learning according to teachers and students. Now I would like to see an explanation for why this is so.
Conclusion
Multimodal teaching engages students and provides them with a toolkit of learning possibilities. Mirror neuron theory provides some support for the necessity of doing and creating rather than just watching or imitating.
References
Katz, L. (2013). Moving ideas: Multimodality and embodied learning in communities and schools. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.