Physical
gesturing while talking is something that people naturally do. Walk into any room
with people talking, and you will find fingers pointing, counting, waving.
Before learning to speak, babies learn to point and grab towards what they want.
In classroom, professors and teachers use gesturing when explaining concepts. In
fact, gesturing is proving to be nearly vital to the learning environment--
kids who learn with hand gestures understand concepts more quickly and on a deeper
level than just hearing a verbal lesson.
A study done in 2017 gives evidence
that the first is true; children understand lessons faster and more accurately
when taught with gesturing. Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by
guiding their visual attention is a study done by Elizabeth Wakefield et. al.
that looked into how children learn and how visual gestures guide them to
process information. They taught two groups of 8-10 year old children how to
solve a math equation; one group had an instructor who verbally taught the process
of the equation: “I want to make one side, equal to the other side” (Wakefield
et. al. 2017). The second group had an instructor who both verbally spoke this cue
and gestured with her hands at the board towards the numbers she was referencing.
The groups did not deviate in performance during the training portion of the experiment,
but when tested, there was a significant improvement among the participants who
learned via gesture and speech. The average number of problems correct for speech
alone was a little less than 2 (plus or minus one), but the average number of
problems correct for speech and gesture was 2.5 (plus or minus one). One key
element when assessing the children who learned from gesture and speech was
recording that when the child themselves solved a problem, they used their hands
to figure out the problem in the same manner that the instructor used her hands
to guide the steps of the problem. This is an important thing to note, because
it denotes that the gestures used when teaching a concept may be the factor
that guides a student to executing that concept. As well as that, gesturing has
proved to engage students in learning more—the students who learned with
gesture and speech followed along more closely to the lesson than the ones who
learned with speech alone. This can improve focus, memory, and understanding in
children. If they are lost on what the teacher is referring to, then they may
not understand and fail to pay close attention. When a student is engaged,
focused, and following along, their absorption of the material greatly
improves. Learning with gesture is an important factor in childhood education,
as it not only expands the knowledge of the child, but it also expands the
cognitive ability of the child; “…gesture affects cognitive change in ways that
cannot be fully captured by overt behavioral measures taken during the learning
process itself” (Wakefield et. al. 2017).
Another source confirms this. Ben
Rogers has been a teacher of the sciences for 18 years, including math and physics.
In 2020, he published a blog on the Royal Society of Chemistry website titled “Gestures
are handy in class”. In this post, he recognizes the importance of hand
gesturing while teaching. “One of the most challenging things we ask our students
to do is convert a string of spoken or written words into a dynamic 3D model in
their minds” Rogers starts off his post, using the example of
chemical models in classrooms. He says the most powerful tool professors have
to explain a concept is their hands, and most of the time they already use it.
Once a student is aware that the professor’s gesturing can be a tool, they can utilize
it for better understanding and grasping of concepts. Rogers points out that
past research has shown that gesturing also improves the memory of a student,
and their later retrieval of a concept taught in class is greatly improved when
they use gestures. Gesturing may be the greatest problem-solving tool for
students as well. Rogers notes that students spontaneously use their hands when
alone and explaining a problem to themselves. He encourages students to use
their hands in explaining even in a public classroom setting- it can help a struggling
mind more than you think; “Gesturing helps reduce cognitive load” (Rogers, 2020).
When a student cannot connect the proper words in their mind to explain or
solve a problem, often times they can model their hands without knowing the words.
Gesturing provides the means to a solution when words fail and can greatly
improve one’s performance. Rogers states that even when a student who is gesturing
their solution gets it wrong, they are still very close to “getting” the
solution through their hand movements, showing that there is a deeper understanding
than what the words may show.
Both Wakefield and Rogers come to a
very important conclusion: gesturing during lessons is something that is vital
to education and should be implemented wherever there is learning. The effects
of gesturing are tremendous, improving the exam score yields and understanding of
students on a deeper level. Gesturing facilitates focus in lessons and
stimulates a process for students to follow when being tested. Not only do hand
gestures lead to a path of wider and fuller knowledge for students, but it
conditions their cognitive brains to assess and absorb information faster and
more efficiently during the class time, which is a valuable key in education.
Works Cited
Rogers,
B. (2020, September 21). Gestures are handy in class [Review of Gestures
are handy in class]. The Royal Society of Chemistry.
https://edu.rsc.org/feature/using-gestures-in-the-classroom/4012415.article
Wakefield, E.,
Novack, M. A., Congdon, E. L., Franconeri, S., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2018).
Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual
attention. Developmental Science, 21(6), e12664.
https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12664
Using gestures in the classroom | Feature | RSC Education
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