Our belief is that children learn best if you tap into their five senses. In addition, you have other elements that help the brain become more stimulated. If you believe that you can “Spark the Mind,” you will be able to teach children!
When students interact with the world and synthesize information obtained by their senses, neurons receive input from each other and are altered, creating new electrical patterns between networks of neurons. New neural connections are formed constantly, while others are either strengthened or eliminated. A large body of research confirms that humans exposed to more enriched environments have increased branching and connecting of neurons.
Children need to be stimulated! The old-fashioned way of sitting still and being quiet has its place, but does not always work for all children. Movement is created with students doing dance steps and writing their own song lyrics. You have a core group of kids that seem to struggle with learning most concepts. These kids will soar during a creative process!
How Music and Lyrics Help Students to Memorize
The brain is a pattern maker. Pattern making is pleasing for the brain. The brain takes great pleasure in taking random and chaotic information and ordering it. When given instruction, a learner is faced with random and unordered information. To provide the maximum opportunity for the brain to order this information and form meaningful patterns that will be remembered, the learning must have meaning.
Setting up a learning environment that uses a hip hop song that has a patterned beat and using lyrics in this way mirrors real life that is often random and chaotic. Students are pros at memorizing song lyrics and will create a pattern from the familiar beats to memorize such things as their multiplication tables.
The brain, when allowed to express its pattern-making behavior, creates coherency and meaning. Learning is best accomplished when the learning activity is connected directly to a physical experience. We remember best when facts and skills are embedded in natural, spatial memory, and in a real-life activity. The kids will be able to dance while creating. We learn best by doing!