Cargando…

Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity

BACKGROUND: Characteristics of both teachers and learners influence mathematical learning. For example, when teachers use hand gestures to support instruction, students learn more than others who learn the same concept with only speech, and students with higher working memory capacity (WMC) learn mo...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Aldugom, Mary, Fenn, Kimberly, Cook, Susan Wagner
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer International Publishing 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7283399/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32519045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00215-8
_version_ 1783544294863273984
author Aldugom, Mary
Fenn, Kimberly
Cook, Susan Wagner
author_facet Aldugom, Mary
Fenn, Kimberly
Cook, Susan Wagner
author_sort Aldugom, Mary
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Characteristics of both teachers and learners influence mathematical learning. For example, when teachers use hand gestures to support instruction, students learn more than others who learn the same concept with only speech, and students with higher working memory capacity (WMC) learn more rapidly than those with lower WMC. One hypothesis for the effect of gesture on math learning is that gestures provide a signal to learners that can reduce demand on working memory resources during learning. However, it is not known what sort of working memory resources support learning with gesture. Gestures are motoric; they co-occur with verbal language and they are perceived visually. METHODS: In two studies, we investigated the relationship between mathematical learning with or without gesture and individual variation in verbal, visuospatial, and kinesthetic WMC. Students observed a videotaped lesson in a novel mathematical system that either included instruction with both speech and gesture (Study 1) or instruction with only speech (Study 2). After instruction, students solved novel problems in the instructed system and transfer problems in a related system. Finally, students completed verbal, visuospatial, and kinesthetic working memory assessments. RESULTS: There was a positive relationship between visuospatial WMC and math learning when gesture was present, but no relationship between visuospatial WMC and math learning when gesture was absent. Rather, when gesture was absent, there was a relationship between verbal WMC and math learning. CONCLUSION: Providing gesture during instruction appears to change the cognitive resources recruited when learning a novel math task.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7283399
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher Springer International Publishing
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-72833992020-06-15 Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity Aldugom, Mary Fenn, Kimberly Cook, Susan Wagner Cogn Res Princ Implic Original Article BACKGROUND: Characteristics of both teachers and learners influence mathematical learning. For example, when teachers use hand gestures to support instruction, students learn more than others who learn the same concept with only speech, and students with higher working memory capacity (WMC) learn more rapidly than those with lower WMC. One hypothesis for the effect of gesture on math learning is that gestures provide a signal to learners that can reduce demand on working memory resources during learning. However, it is not known what sort of working memory resources support learning with gesture. Gestures are motoric; they co-occur with verbal language and they are perceived visually. METHODS: In two studies, we investigated the relationship between mathematical learning with or without gesture and individual variation in verbal, visuospatial, and kinesthetic WMC. Students observed a videotaped lesson in a novel mathematical system that either included instruction with both speech and gesture (Study 1) or instruction with only speech (Study 2). After instruction, students solved novel problems in the instructed system and transfer problems in a related system. Finally, students completed verbal, visuospatial, and kinesthetic working memory assessments. RESULTS: There was a positive relationship between visuospatial WMC and math learning when gesture was present, but no relationship between visuospatial WMC and math learning when gesture was absent. Rather, when gesture was absent, there was a relationship between verbal WMC and math learning. CONCLUSION: Providing gesture during instruction appears to change the cognitive resources recruited when learning a novel math task. Springer International Publishing 2020-06-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7283399/ /pubmed/32519045 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00215-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Original Article
Aldugom, Mary
Fenn, Kimberly
Cook, Susan Wagner
Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity
title Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity
title_full Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity
title_fullStr Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity
title_full_unstemmed Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity
title_short Gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity
title_sort gesture during math instruction specifically benefits learners with high visuospatial working memory capacity
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7283399/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32519045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00215-8
work_keys_str_mv AT aldugommary gestureduringmathinstructionspecificallybenefitslearnerswithhighvisuospatialworkingmemorycapacity
AT fennkimberly gestureduringmathinstructionspecificallybenefitslearnerswithhighvisuospatialworkingmemorycapacity
AT cooksusanwagner gestureduringmathinstructionspecificallybenefitslearnerswithhighvisuospatialworkingmemorycapacity