Minutes of Movement Make a Difference for Heuvelton Students

This short program, held at a small rural public school in June 2016, sought to determine the effectiveness of Math & Movement after incorporating it into the school’s math curriculum. 16 students worked one-on-one with teachers for approximately 90 minutes over two days. 

During this program, students were tested after both one minute of physical activity and after three minutes of physical activity.

First, students participated in one minute of physical activity and took a pre-test on multiplication by 3s. They repeated this, but with three minutes of physical activity before the pre-test. This was before using any Math & Movement materials.

Next, they participated in the 90-minute intervention. During the invention, students practiced multiplication by 3s by jumping on the Skip Counting by 3s Mat. They used the mat as a tool to solve problems.

Finally, students participated in one minute of physical activity and completed a post-test consisting of the same multiplication by 3s problems. They did not have access to the Skip Counting by 3s Mat during the post-test. Then, they repeated this, but with three minutes of physical activity before the post-test.

On average, students’ post-test scores were four times higher than their pre-test scores after only 90 minutes of practice. This is especially impressive considering the fact that the participating second graders did not have any prior knowledge of multiplication by 3s.

The study also revealed a positive correlation between time spent participating in physical activity and test scores. Students with one minute of physical activity before a test scored an average of only 4% of their pre-tests and 40% on their post-tests. In contrast, students with three minutes of physical activity scored an average of 13% on their pre-tests and 53% on their post-tests.

Both situations showed significant gains in multiplication fluency by using kinesthetic strategies. Students with one minute of physical activity displayed a 90% gain while students with three minutes of physical activity showed an impressive 307% improvement.

Students across grade levels demonstrated stronger fluency on multiplication by 3s.

Instructors noticed students were more focused and had fewer behavioral issues while using kinesthetic strategies. In fact, one student was on school suspension because she was so disruptive in class. But during the program, she worked consistently on solving the math problems.