Ballroom Dance Meets Math
Monday August 4, 2008
I feel like I'm blogging a 'believe it or not' blog! I've always been a fan of integrating math with other subject areas across the curriculum, but struggled somewhat to link math with physical education, aside from the obvious scores and stats. However, apparently teachers are using a new way to teach math by translating patterns into choreography and then translating patterns into math. They're having success while making math meaningful and engaging their students, certainly the ingredients of a great math class. Check out Science Daily for more information on the Math Dance.
Comments
What’s wrong with teaching math by examples?
Math has always been integrated with other subjects and real-life events for many years. I just think that people today are looking for an easy way to learn complicated stuff. Math is not meant to be easy. Math is science and science is math and BOTH subjects require hard work to master.
I intergrate math with chess (www.mathandchess.com) and I hope by mixing math and chess, it adds more challenge and fun into math.
Being a person that has always had trouble mastering math skills, I think integrating it with something else is a wonderful way of learning math. Not all of us are meant to be masters of math.
I believe math is behind everything since everything has a system of equations behind it (even when you don’t see it). I also believe that integration of math with the arts can give more insight to what we already know and don’t know yet. Dance also is helpful for those who don’t automatically feel the abstract views. I don’t believe that it is an easy way out, I see it as a new route in.
Also, Guido, math is a type of science; as science contains a lot of math. As art, language and history also have their correlations to both subjects. Open your mind to new examples, but don’t leave the others behind.