Observing children’s movement in learning environments
Professor Coralee McLaren is investigating the way children move in response to learning environments and each other.
A Toronto Metropolitan University researcher is examining the way children move – research that could help optimize classrooms and other play spaces to facilitate learning.
Nursing professor Coralee McLaren applies her experiences as a professional dancer and a pediatric nurse to her investigations into how to foster children’s movement, particularly with those who have a diverse range of physical abilities. This work encompasses how children move in response to each other and their physical environments, such as a classroom’s objects and features.
Professor McLaren spent two months in an integrated kindergarten classroom at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. There she observed and interviewed 20 children who were constantly on the move and engaged in play. Some were independently mobile while others used mobility devices to support their movements.
“The kindergarten classroom was a perfect place to study these encounters,” said professor McLaren. When observing the relationship between children’s movement and classroom features, “we quickly realized that children were not only responding to the physical attributes of the space – they were also responding to the playful movements of their classmates.”
Professor McLaren notes in a recent paper that movement-related research has often focused on children without mobility challenges or devices in outdoor play environments – whereas her research has included the indoors. It also concentrates on how much children move, not how or why they move in dynamic and responsive ways. As part of her early research studies into the latter, she observed how quickly children copied or mimicked an action, like a classmate’s skip, jump or turn.
“The response time was so short that it became clear that children were not engaged in a kind of cognitive decision making… it was too fast,” she said. This prompted a pilot study that included non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) methods to examine neurological responses to movement. The team measured children’s responses to spontaneous versus scripted movement cues, finding that the former prompted children to attune and synchronize their movements when they were exposed to changes in rhythm, speed and flow. The team noted that children who used mobility devices often did so in creative, non-habitual ways in response to these triggers.
Professor McLaren has recently received additional external funding to further her research into refining measurement tools and analyzing these neurological responses in real world environments. “Advances in neuroimaging suggest that movement may affect how we learn. If we can figure out what’s happening, or glimpse into children’s brains before they actually move …we can use that pedagogically to promote their learning at school,” she said. This could be as simple as rethinking classroom layout, as professor McLaren notes there has been other neuro-based research showing a close association between moving freely, novel spaces and optimal learning.
Read professor McLaren’s 2019 journal article in Performance Matters, “Dancing Bodies, Moving Spaces: Revealing Children’s Movement Encounters in an Integrated Kindergarten Classroom (external link, opens in new window) .”
Learn more in the journal Global Performance Studies 2021 article, “Turning Points: A Radical Approach to Fostering Movement in Children with Diverse Physical Abilities (external link) .”
Professor McLaren was featured in an episode of the CRAM Ideas podcast (external link, opens in new window) .
More about the Dance Play Event in a 2021 YouTube video (external link, opens in new window) .
Professor McLaren’s research is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Related links:
Dancing and nursing come together to understand spaces, how we move in them and how we learn
