David Wolovsky

Brain-Body Math
Summary:
Math curriculum and pedagogy for 6th-10th grade students with primary goals of
developing students academic resilience, problem solving skills, innovation skills,
Working Memory capacity, and mind-body coordination. This is achieved through
learning tasks (described below) sequenced by increasing Working Memory load.
Conceptual basis:

Instruction on holistic problem solving and innovation. Constituent skills

essential to problem solving and innovation include (among others): asking

divergent questions; observing multiple levels of detail; using tools as they were
designed to be used and experimenting with them in new ways; identifying physical
and conceptual patterns; describing structures; making predictions.

All of the above skills are mediated by executive-function mechanisms (e.g.

Working Memory). Understanding these mechanisms (and how they can be

developed) enhances students ability to train them. Two ways Brain Body Math
helps students train executive functioning is through meditation (low-stimulus
attention control) and cognitive motor exercises (high-stimulus attention control),
described below.

Student resilience, both academic and social, can be increased by brief

instruction on the structure of the brain, with an emphasis on neuroplasticity and

an incremental theory of intelligence and personality. This is also referred to as
teaching for a Growth Mindset. David Scott Yeager & Carol S. Dweck (2012).

Goldin-Meadow, et al. (2012) found that having students perform gestures

relevant to mathematical problem solving strategies, even without understanding

the gestures, facilitated greater learning transfer than non-gesturing control groups.
This is part of a developing field called Embodied Cognition, which has been finding

increasing evidence of the significant bidirectional influence between sensory

experience and cognitive thoughts.

Rigoli. D, et al. (2012) found that motor coordination (e.g. aiming and

catching) predicted academic achievement and was mediated by Working Memory.

There is also fMRI and cognitive psychological evidence linking Working Memory
to rhythmic motor planning and motor coordination. Working Memory is one of the
most important executive functions for understanding and solving problems in
novel situations. It is also trainable.

Main Learning Tasks:

Examine the physical world and the mind through the framework of objects*

and processes**. Students combine objects and processes to solve problems (in
math, in design, and in the students own lives). They also experimentally combine
objects and processes in new and creative ways, i.e. innovate. A key innovation skill
is performing new processes with old objects and performing old processes with
new objects. An example of this is using arithmetic operations with objects other
than numbers. We can, for example, perform arithmetic with algebraic expressions
(e.g. 5X+2X, 5X-2X, etc.), or even days of the week (Monday=1, Tuesday=2
Monday+Monday=Tuesday...What other weird things happen?).
In math, multiplication is a way of organizing one object by the structure of
another object (e.g. 2x3 is taking groups of two and organizing them as a group of
3). We can also explore what it would mean to add or multiply everyday objects
and ideas. For example, What would it mean to multiply the concept of pizza with
the concept of burritos, and how would it be different from adding those
concepts? Another example might be fabric colors. We can stitch together a blue
cloth with a yellow cloth, or we can weave blue threads together with yellow
threads to make a totally different color. We can also mix ideas and everyday

objects with numbers. E.g. we can divide a cake into 4 pieces.

This is, in a way, what all innovation is: mental arithmetic on everyday
objects and concepts. We add new ideas, subtract others, multiply them together,
and scale up or down. In this class, particular attention is paid to the
unpredictability and complexity of new inventions, which often appear simple
when first created in the mind. For example, counting numbers (N=1, 2, 3, 4),
which arose out of the connection between our minds and our hands, were
originally invented as a way to keep track of physical objects in our environment.
The base 10 structure of them, however, contains complex abstract patterns that
are extremely useful and interesting, and we could not have predicted those
patterns when we first created numbers. Another, more tangible example, is the
paperclip. It was created to serve specific purposes of clipping paper, but if we keep
experimenting, we can keep finding new uses for paperclips that the inventor could
never have foreseen.
*Objects include nouns: numbers, shapes, physical objects, students own brains and bodies,
hammers, nails, cameras, etc.
**Processes include verbs: arithmetic operations, graphical transformations, thinking, making
hand gestures, physical movements, cutting, gluing, pouring, pushing, etc.

Guide students in identifying and describing patterns in math and relating

them to patterns in the students own minds. This is achieved through several
activities: 1) Asking numerous divergent questions (i.e. brain storm with questions),
discerning the more useful questions from among them. Students begin training on
this skill by guessing what questions may have led to the teacher-presented
examples (e.g. What questions might have led us to create negative numbers?
What are some real world analogs to the relationship between negative and positive
numbers?), and students progress by asking their own questions to lead their own
mathematical pursuits (within a teacher-approved complexity level). 2) Examine
similarities and differences between math and the mind. One important aspect of

this is learning about human cognition (Working Memory, embodied cognition,

heuristics, cognitive biases, etc). 3) Create and solve sets of mathematical problems,
varying as much as possible with average, extreme, and opposite examples. The
explicit goal is to discern the structures and patterns that arise in numbers,
algebraic expressions, and shapes. These problem sets also create abundant
opportunities to practice mindfulness and see cognitive biases in action, as
calculation mistakes are often caused by cognitive biases such as priming (e.g. 5 x 5
= 55). As students progress, they create more of the problems for themselves, still
focusing on variety of problem characteristics. 4) Create and solve sets of random
problems within the current math topic. This is akin to conventional formative
math tests, but emphasis is placed on the growth that occurs simply by putting in
effort, rather than on the grade. They are called Growth Challenges (GCs) to
reflect the growthful nature of trying to randomise and solve problems. As students
advance, they create more of the problems for themselves and their peers. The
explicit goals of GCs are to increase students skills with the mathematical tools, as
well as develop their divergent thinking abilities (by breaking patterns and trying to
create truly randomised sets of examples). As a way to encourage continued effort,
the students are invited to record the amount of correct answers they get on each
GC and keep a running tally. At the end of the semester, they can use the points to
measure how much they have grown and receive a material symbol to remind them
of that growth.

Have students draw and gesture with their hands to capture abstract

mathematical structures and problem solving strategies in visuospatial and

embodied ways for increased mental integration and understanding.

Have students perform cognitive motor brain training exercises, including

but not limited to simultaneous combinations of the following: visual counting (e.g.
how many circles are on a sheet of paper), mental arithmetic, throwing and
catching objects, juggling, balancing, plyometrics, drumming and clapping, and
other student-generated activities. These exercises activate verbal, visuospatial, and
motor-coordinative neural networks simultaneously, which enhances attentional
control, Working Memory, and mind-body coordination.