Research Question: Can kinesthetic learning improve retention and increase the pace of learning for students?

On my first day of Partnership classes, my professor stated that we needed to have a research question to work with with this semester while participating in the classroom. I thought long and hard about this question because I wanted to do research on a topic that I was interested and, possibly, a topic I could relate to. I have always been very athletic and, as a child, I always had a hard time sitting still in class. I still have problems with this today. I have also always been the student that learned quicker when I was able to use anything hands-on or participate in any learning activity. So, I wanted to do some hands- on research with kinesthetic learning. Kinesthetic learning is a learning style in which learning takes place by the students carrying out physical activities, rather than listening to a lecture or watching demonstrations. I decided to dive deep into this research question by studying different Kindergartners in my partnership semester. I did this by taking copious amounts of notes and recorded many different activities to help with my support my research. I took upon myself to test out certain activities and practices to see what the pros and cons of kinesthetic learning would be for the elementary level of learning.

Below is some examples of kinesthetic learning I witnessed and facilitated to improve students retention:

Math Kinesthetic Learning

Forming Numbers with Playdoh