Harnessing Gesture and Action to Improve Pre-Algebra Instruction

在代数方面取得成功的学生更有可能在高级STEM课程中取得成功。代数不及格的学生更有可能从高中辍学。芝加哥大学和洛约拉大学芝加哥的一个研究小组将进行一系列实验研究，探索手势和操纵的使用如何提高对数学等价性的理解。一个基本的前代数的构建块孩子们常常对这个概念产生误解。他们可以正确地解决3+4+5=_这样的问题，但是当面对3+4+5=_+5这样的问题时，他们把所有的数字加在一起，或者只是把等号左边的数字加起来。这种误解往往导致代数困难。研究人员将测试学生和教师在课堂环境中已经使用的两种形式的运动如何用于提高学习效果：直接在物体上进行的动作，以及手势，可以与语音沿着交流思想的手的运动。先前的研究表明，动作和手势对儿童的思考和学习方式都有强大的影响。通过一系列的研究，研究团队将探索（1）儿童如何通过动作或手势学习后学习，概括和保持对数学等价的理解，（2）口头指令如何与动作和手势一起使用以影响学习结果，以及（3）如何在指令中结合动作和手势以促进学习。为了激励未来的工作和完善教育实践，行为方法和神经成像技术将用于了解动作和手势如何产生效果。通过考虑大脑在学习过程中的变化，可以更清楚地了解在创建教学工具时应该强调的手势和动作方面。该项目由EHR核心研究计划资助，该计划支持基础研究，促进STEM学习的研究文献。研究的首要目标是调查动作和手势教学如何影响儿童？的能力，学习，概括，并保留相关的信息，以发展数学等价的前代数概念。动作和手势都是塑造认知的有力工具。然而，这些工具可以以不同的方式促进学习，因此在学习过程的不同阶段可能是有益的。支持的项目探索这一假设，并有3个具体的目标：（1）确定如何最好地使用动作和手势，不仅可以促进数学等价的初始学习，而且还可以促进新学到的概念的概括和保留。动作和姿势训练的效果将在行为和神经水平上考虑。行为数据将显示一般结果;神经影像学方法将用于区分可能导致行为效应的各种机制。将这些方法结合起来，将导致以证据为基础的教育技术的发展，目标是通过行动和手势学习。(2)确定动作和手势如何与口语教学相互作用，以促进数学等价的学习、概括和保持。 口语教学是教师最常用的教学方法，先前的研究表明，手势与言语的结合比动作更紧密。了解语言如何与手势和动作相互作用以促进学习，从而有可能增加这些教学工具的实用性。(3)研究如何将手势和动作结合起来，以促进数学等值的学习、概括和保持。动作可能是引入概念的有用方式;手势可能会鼓励儿童概括概念。这个问题之所以重要，是因为在课堂上使用操纵词的动作的频率;虽然操纵词善于向学习者介绍一个概念，但它可能有一个重要的缺点：它们可能会抑制对新问题的概括。这些目标将通过对9-10岁儿童的一系列组间研究来实现。

Students who succeed in algebra are more likely to be successful in advanced STEM courses. Students who fail algebra are more likely to drop out of high school. A team of researchers at the University of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago will conduct a set of experimental studies to explore how gesture and use of manipulatives may improve understanding of mathematical equivalence. a fundamental, pre-algebraic building block. Young children often have misconceptions about this concept??they can correctly solve problems like 3+4+5=___ , but when faced with a problem like 3+4+5=___+5, they add all of the numbers together, or just add the numbers to the left of the equal sign. This misconception often leads to difficulties with algebra. The researchers will test how two forms of movement that students and teachers already use in a classroom setting can be used to improve learning outcomes: actions, performed directly on objects, and gestures, movements of the hands that can communicate ideas along with speech. Previous work shows that both action and gesture have powerful effects on how children think and learn. Through a series of studies, the research team will explore (1) how children learn, generalize, and retain an understanding of mathematical equivalence after learning through action or gesture, (2) how spoken instruction can be used with action and gesture to affect learning outcomes, and (3) how action and gesture can be combined in instruction to bolster learning. To motivate future work and refine educational practices, behavioral methods and neuroimaging techniques will be used to understand how action and gesture produce their effects. By considering how the brain changes over the course of learning, it will be possible to gain a clearer understanding of the aspects of gesture and action that should be emphasized in the creation of teaching tools. The project is funded by the EHR Core Research program, which supports fundamental research that advances the research literature on STEM learning.The overarching goal of the research is to investigate how action and gesture instruction affect children?s ability to learn, generalize, and retain information relevant to developing the pre-algebraic concept of mathematical equivalence. Action and gesture are both powerful tools that can shape cognition. However, these tools may promote learning in different ways and thus may be beneficial at different stages of the learning process. The supported projects explore this hypothesis, and have 3 specific goals: (1) To determine how action and gesture can best be used not only to promote initial learning of mathematical equivalence, but also to promote generalization and retention of the newly learned concept. The effects of action and gesture training will be considered on both a behavioral and neural level. Behavioral data will indicate general outcomes; neuroimaging methods will be used to differentiate between various mechanisms that could underlie the behavioral effects. Combining these methods will lead to the development of evidence-based educational techniques that target learning through action and gesture. (2) To determine how action and gesture interact with spoken instruction to promote learning, generalization, and retention of mathematical equivalence. Spoken instruction is the most common instructional method used by teachers, and prior work suggests that gesture is more tightly integrated with speech than action. Understanding how speech interacts with gesture and action to promote learning thus has the potential to increase the utility of each of these teaching tools. (3) To determine how gesture and action can be combined to promote learning, generalization and retention of mathematical equivalence. Action may be a useful way to introduce a concept; gesture may encourage children to generalize the concept. This issue takes on importance because of the frequency with which actions on manipulatives are used in classrooms; although good at introducing learners to a concept, manipulatives may have an important downside: They may inhibit generalization to new problems. These goals will be addressed through research with 9-10 year old children in a series of between-group studies.