Kinesthetic Learners Improve Retention through Interactive Surfaces Coated with Whiteboard Paint

The highly interactive surfaces of walls coated with whiteboard paint give students endless hands-on learning opportunities. Educators generally agree that such learning leads to better memory retention and educational outcomes for kinesthetic learners. These learners can connect more deeply with lesson material by engaging their physical senses and movements with whiteboard walls. This, in turn, leads to improved comprehension, memory, and academic success.

In the article below, we’ll describe the qualities of kinesthetic learners and some creative ways teachers can use whiteboard painted walls to address these students’ special needs. Doing so will help ensure positive learning effects for even the most active kinesthetic students in your classroom.

Who are Kinesthetic Learners?

No matter what grade level they’re teaching, educators face the endless task of getting through to a room full of students with different preferred learning styles: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. Kinesthetic learners enjoy using their hands to learn, are highly energetic, have trouble settling down, and are not avid readers.

They’re “tactile” learners who prefer activity, experimentation, hit-and-miss approaches, and non-traditional environments to acquire information. Kinesthetic learners gain knowledge most easily by doing and feeling. They favor being in motion, acting out events, handling physical objects, and working on surfaces. The most effective way for teachers to help such students learn is to get them moving during lessons.

Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom

For example, you can coach your kinesthetic learners in acting out a scene from a book or from a lesson you’re teaching. These kinds of students also become engaged when you include movement, such as walking back and forth, to aid recall. To this end, walls coated with whiteboard paint are ideal teaching tools. They require students to walk from side to side while writing or drawing, thus appealing to kinesthetic learners’ need for movement. They also enhance memory of lesson material because writing reinforces what students absorb during the verbal part of a lecture.

Studies show that large surfaces that require walking from side to side while writing promote active thinking. That’s because when people move around in front of wall-sized writable spaces, they tend to think fast, and come up with multiple ideas. The act of walking back and forth in front of a whiteboard painted wall stimulates the brain.

In fact, researchers have found that walking is correlated with improved memory and cognitive function, and reduced cognitive decline. This is so because walking boosts blood flow to the brain, leading to the release of a protein that promotes the growth and health of brain cells. This process in turn causes original thoughts and images to come up more easily than they would when a person is sitting down.

As a result, kinesthetic learners have an easier time understanding abstract ideas and difficult content if they can move physically while they’re engaged in a lesson. Such movement may take the form of writing by hand on a wall coated with whiteboard paint. The action of handwriting also enhances students’ fine motor skills by requiring them to use the small muscles in their hands, fingers, and wrists.

In addition, you might ask kinesthetic learners to follow along during lessons by writing or drawing on a whiteboard wall or on small individual boards coated with whiteboard paint. In this way, they’ll be able to associate their physical movements with the lesson’s ideas and facts, making the content easier to understand. You can also have kinesthetic learners use the whiteboard wall to teach their peers what’s just been covered in a lesson. In any case, the key with kinesthetic learners is to avoid suppressing their need for activity but instead to embrace it and let them move while involved in class activities.

Using teaching tools wisely is a good way to close the gap between what students need to learn and their ability to understand lessons. Thus, you can achieve the maximum learning outcomes for all your learners. To this end, a whiteboard painted wall gives you a medium for combining reading and writing practice, visuals, kinesthetic activity, and multi-media presentations. Using this varied approach will address the needs of all types of learners in your class at once.

Why are Interactive Surfaces Helpful for Learners?

In classroom settings, movement can serve many functions, corresponding to the abovementioned benefits. Movement stimulates the brain so as to greatly enhance learning. It also offers students the chance to take mental breaks at times when they feel stressed out over their academic performance. In addition, structured movement increases class unity while enhancing learners’ physical wellbeing. On the whole, physical activity, either inside or outside the classroom, supports students’ peer relationships, ability to learn, and power to apply rigor to their learning.

Activities involving movement are easily implemented during daily lessons. They may take the form of games, for example, which can help students’ review difficult concepts in a fun and exciting way. This strategy becomes effortless when students have access to a large, inviting whiteboard painted wall.

Interactive Surfaces and Game Activities

Allowing students to manipulate images and words on a whiteboard wall through game playing makes learning enjoyable and enhances recall. Whiteboard wall games offer a dynamic, engaging way to review concepts, practice skills, and encourage teamwork. From traditional options such as Pictionary to more recent interactive games like Hot Seat, you can easily conduct competitive activities related to different subjects and grade levels on a whiteboard wall. The following are some popular whiteboard wall games you may employ in your classroom to augment lessons for both your kinesthetic learners and other students.

Pictionary: Teams of students compete in drawing clues from which their teammates can guess words or phrases. The game gets competitive as players race against the clock to make guesses, thus fostering teamwork and quick thinking. This game triggers friendly competition while improving students’ ability to communicate through art.

Hangman: Hangman involves one student choosing a word while the others try to guess it by calling out letters. Incorrect guesses result in the slow drawing of a stick figure. This game tests students’ vocabulary and reasoning skills, while enhancing strategic thinking, collaboration, and communication.

Tic-Tac-Toe: Have your students play this traditional game with a variation, whereby they have to answer questions related to a recent lesson before they can place their Xs or Os on the board.

Hot Seat: Ask one student to sit in a “hot seat” facing away from the whiteboard painted wall and have them guess a word or phrase as their classmates give clues. The student in the hot seat listens to the clues and tries to guess the word. After the word is guessed correctly, the rest of the students take turns sitting in the hot seat.

Dictation Race: Teams of students race up to the whiteboard wall to write a sentence that you dictate. The team that writes the whole sentence correctly first wins the race. This game helps students practice their spelling, handwriting, and listening skills.

Story Builder: Students take turns writing a story by adding content to a sentence you write on the whiteboard wall, thus promoting creativity and collaboration.

Word Association: Have students write synonyms or other words or phrases related to a word posted on the whiteboard wall. This activity reinforces students’ ability to remember vocabulary and think about the connections between words.

Advantages of Hands-On Learning Experiences

Kinesthetic learners connect more deeply with lesson material by dynamically engaging their physical senses and movements through activities like whiteboard wall games. This leads to improved comprehension and retention. Since hands-on activities allow kinesthetic learners to relate with the concepts they’re taught physically, they provide more tangible and unforgettable learning experiences.

Interactive surfaces and activities involving the body can thus, make learning more engaging and enjoyable for kinesthetic learners, improving their motivation and learning outcomes. To sum up, concrete learning experiences greatly benefit kinesthetic learners, helping them to more effectively understand, recall, and apply the content they learn in the classroom.

Summary

Article Name

Kinesthetic Learners Improve Retention through Interactive Surfaces Coated with Whiteboard Paint

Description

Kinesthetic learners boost retention by using interactive surfaces with whiteboard paint for hands-on, movement-based learning.

Author

Susan Anspach

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ReMARKable Whiteboard Paint

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